


Held in Trust

by Wrathernice



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: AU, Angst, Bronze Sector, F/F, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-10-18 00:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10605576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathernice/pseuds/Wrathernice
Summary: The Bronze Sector: Most think of it as a place for the most insidious of mankind, an abattoir for the dangerous. But Scots-American Greer Thomson stumbled upon the Warehouse by accident, and policy of the early 1900s left her caged in bronze, brought out of confinement only when a person of her talents was needed, and returned when she was no longer useful. She has given up hope of ever leaving, but then Helena Wells walks in, and the seed is planted: What if she could escape? What if she had a reason to want to?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic actually came to me in a dream. Considering my first fanfic ever-- the first two stories of which flew out of me like a never-ending whirlwind in the space of two weeks-- sprouted from a dream, I followed the intriguing idea to this story. (Thankfully, reading back over that first attempt has made me realize that my writing is much better these days-- I no longer speak solely in cliches.) I've edited this first chapter, nothing huge, but it needed some tweaking, considering this was a draft when I posted it, and what I have for it now occupies a thirty-nine page word document... Yeah. Anyway, I may have decided-- or rather, my brain has decided without my opinion-- that I'm continuing, but input on all my stories is ALWAYS welcome, and I even listen to it! So please feel you can leave a comment if you want to. And enjoy! 
> 
> P.S.-- Yes, yes, I know, this isn't Bering and Wells. I'm sorry, truly I am, because damn! What a couple. But as I wrote, as I learned about this new character, I realized that Helena (and the story behind her character arc) is the perfect prompt for conflict... and I just don't write straight original characters.

Warehouse 13, 1916

“What do you mean, I canna leave?” The look on her face is first livid, then more hesitant with fear as she regards the serious faces of the men before her.

The taller one glances as his partner, brown eyes stern. The partner rolls his eyes up, then says, “There are secrets that cannot be revealed. You must be held in trust.”

“Held in trust?" she echoes. "What does that mean?” Indignance stoked anew at the vagueness, her eyes flame as she says, “Are you going to kill me, or cut out my tongue or somesuch?”

The taller man takes her roughly by the arm, shoving her in front of him, down a set of metal stairs-- how had they managed that, in the middle of wartime?-- to the seemingly endless rows of shelves. “No, ma'am,” he replies, dragging her along. “But you may decide those would be better.”

\--- --- ---  
Warehouse 13, 2011

She is awakened to the sensation of searing light, just like so many times before. Like always, she is handed a set of goggles to combat it. Unlike before, it is not Mrs. Frederic she sees when her eyes adjust; instead, it is a young girl who introduces herself as Claudia Donovan. “So, uh,” she begins, peering at the screen, “Greer Thomson. Wait, Greer? That can't be right, we've got it in for your first name.” She looks to Greer dubiously for confirmation. Receiving it in a terse nod-- the pronunciation is wrong, but what can you expect of Americans?-- she says, “Ooo-kay. So, Greer--” the inflection she puts on this is odd, like she doesn't believe she's saying it-- “Mrs. F told me you're our pinch hitter in a crisis, but she didn't really tell me, ya know, what you do? So that would be good right now.”

The girl talks fast, so quickly she can barely keep up, but Greer manages; her mind is never the trouble, anyway, it's her shaking limbs, recovering from the stasis. “I mainly assist in Warehouse inventory, technical support, and artifact placement.” Remembering past occasions, she adds acidly, “I'll _no_ cook.”

Claudia's face glows as she starts out of the sector, beckoning. “You had me at 'inventory', my dear woman. Come, come! We have many hours of boring stories ahead of us. Y'know, in the spirit of you knowing what all has been going on and stuff. Do you like TV?” she asks suddenly, whirling around to stare Greer in the face avidly.

Greer has started to recover by this time, but her legs, which had been adjusting to the girl's quick pace, nearly trip her up at the abrupt halt. Stumbling, she catches herself on a shelf, careful not to touch any of its inhabitants. “Where is Mrs. Frederic?” she asks, more than a little annoyed at this pip of a child and her casualness. “And who, exactly, are you?”

The first flash of seriousness crosses Claudia's face, and her words shock Greer to her core. “Mrs. Frederic is dead. I'm the caretaker now.”

\--- --- ---

The warehouse is the same, yet different. The terminals have new keyboards, new displays that she has to learn how to navigate-- _With a finger! The blasted thing has no keyboard_ \-- but the towering shelves and their residents are familiar, if fuller, and less balanced. Greer, in a tone reminiscent of Mrs. Frederic, informs all of the children now under her care that they will be undergoing massive rearrangement. She is not entirely sure the caretaker is exempt from this category.

“I'm _out,_ ” Claudia says abruptly, waving a hand and sailing out the door. She pokes her head back in and says, mock-stern, “No parties, kids,” before letting the vault door close behind her.

The one named Myka speaks up. “So what you're saying is, we have to spend an unknown quantity of time moving artifacts around that we've already moved.”

“Essentially, aye, that's correct,” Greer says, frowning at her tone. It issn't her fault that whoever had been placing the delicate inhabitants before her had been woefully inadequate. “If it wasna for the Neutralizer, this place would be in a sorry state indeed, and even the current tenuous peace is in danger.”

“Are you British?” Pete asks irrelevantly. He turns to Myka, ducking his head down to her ear. “Is she British?” he whispers.

“Scotch by birth, _not_ that it matters,” she reprimands, suppressing a sigh. If the rest are children, he is an infant, obsessed with biscuits and penny dreadfuls. _Comic books,_ she reminds herself; the world has changed since her youth. “The static phenomena will increase if this remains unaddressed.”

Greer can see him mouth the word “phenomena” like he is testing a new flavor. She clears her throat sharply, and he jumps; she hides a smile. “I understand that this may seem like glorified inventory to you, but I assure you, there will be plenty of danger inherent. Artifacts can become... attached to one another, and reluctant to part.”

“I can use the Spiral,” Steve volunteers, and Greer nods in respectful acknowledgment. This one, at least, even if he's impossibly young, seems to take things with the proper amount of seriousness.

“That will help. I will identify the troublemakers, and you can assist in finding their new homes,” she says, pleased. “It will go the quicker with two.”

“And how long is this supposed to take?” Pete asks, eyebrows raising. “Cuz, y'know, there's this movie marathon...”

Artie hunches into the room in time to hear this, and grumbles, “It'll take as long as it takes. Do what the woman says, she knows even more about this place than I do. Do you _know_ what she did in--” He glances at Greer, hesitating. “You know what, nevermind. Now, go.” He shoos them all with his hands, plunks his bag--  _By god,_  Greer thinks, _is that the same one?_ \-- on the chair, then promptly moves it again to sit down.

She sends Steven-- _No, Steve_ \-- with Pete to the nearest section that needs realignment, and takes Myka to the next over. It will be precarious; each troublesome object within each sector must be removed one at a time, and a new home found for it-- preferably somewhere without any disturbances. Once that is done, Greer will have to reevaluate the changed sector for stability, and the results are something she will have to inspect herself, in person. Further changes could need to be made, or not; sometimes, all it takes to restore balance is one, but other times, artifacts prove to have bonded, and create tangled webs of discord that have to be picked loose item by item.

She has done this many times before, with many different agents, but Mrs. Frederic was always a constant-- until now. Claudia had filled her in on what had happened, of course, but the news is still jarring, and she is not at all certain of Mrs. Frederic's successor or her abilities. At least she has Artie; she has awakened many times to unfamiliar agents, but not this time-- and she has always admired him for the adroit intelligence under his harmless-seeming exterior.

Three agents besides herself isn't exactly a dearth-- she's worked with fewer-- but it isn't a boon, either. “Agent Bering,” she asks as they weave through the stacks, “are you, Agent Jinks, and Agent Lattimer the only active agents of the Warehouse at this time?”

Myka starts; they've been walking in silence for several minutes now. “Well, there's H.G.-- Agent Wells. She's coming back tomorrow.” A small chuckle escapes her lips. “She can't stay away.”

 _Neither can I,_ Greer thinks, but keeps it to herself, as she does most her thoughts. “I know I've heard that name somewhere before,” she comments, turning a corner, marking their destination a few rows over. “Has she been an agent for a long time?”

Myka laughs, a sort of snort. “You could say that. She spent most of the last hundred years in the Bronze Sector. But most people know her name from her brother's books.”

“Oh,” Greer replies, affecting nonchalance, but inside, she is intrigued. _Someone else who knows what it is to be locked in that endless quiet, alone in your thoughts._ She wonders what this agent did, to be shut in that cold casing, and why she is still an agent if that was her fate, but they reach their destination, and her mind is overtaken by the wrongness that has been building in the back of her mind.

It is so much stronger here; the artifact causing it is nearby. She holds a hand over several items, feeling them in a metaphysical game of Hide the Thimble. This is her greatest talent, the ability that led her to the Warehouse in the first place, and she uses it now, the echoes of power in each object telling her which direction to go.

“Warmer,” she murmurs ironically as she passes over Antione Lavoisier's personal glass stirring rods, which have a tendency to superheat and eventually explode whatever liquid they mix. She is close, she knows, and holds a hand out to stall Myka's steps. “Tread carefully. The atmosphere is fragile, and whatever it is might put up a fight.”

“A fight? We're not going to activate it, are we?” Myka's hand goes to the Tesla gun at her waist, but Greer shakes her head.

“Nay, this one is already activated, I can feel it.” The prickle in the back of her skull is more than imbalance-- it is malevolence. “It may need airtight containment, or even a move to the Dark Vault, if we canna neutralize it. Slowly, for the now,” she admonishes, as Myka makes to continue. “We dinna yet know what it is, or what it can do.”

“Why does _that_ phrase sound familiar?” Myka mutters, tone sarcastic. Greer stifles a grin. She has uttered it many times, to many agents; it would make a good motto for this strange world she inhabits.

Her eyes close in concentration. They are very close to the active artifact; she can feel the waves washing over her. To the right then, perhaps on the bottom-most shelves...

“Wow,” Myka says, voice breathless, and Greer's eyes snap open in alarm. Myka is reaching for an ornate ceremonial knife, perched on a stand on the shelf just above their heads. In two sweeping steps, Greer is beside her, and grabbing her wrists, eyes searching the notecard for information.

_Sacrificial Dagger_  
_Catherine Monvoisin, notorious occultist, accused of poisoning and infanticide_  
_Properties: Forces those who behold it for longer than five seconds into silence and obedience_  
_WARNING: Causes homicidal tendencies, especially toward children_

She releases Myka, swings the canister hanging from her shoulder to rest on her hip, and her gloved hand twitches the knife into the neutralizer and closes the lid, all in one fluid movement. The canister shakes in her grip for a moment, and then is still. Myka is gasping, as if for air, and Greer lifts an eyebrow at her disapprovingly. “You didna put on the gloves before we came. That almost landed you in some trouble.”

Myka glances down at her hands, having the grace to look embarrassed. Pulling them out of her pocket, she corrects the error, which knocks her up a notch in Greer's book. “Won't happen again,” she says, throat still sounding tight from the effects of the dagger.

“This shouldna be out in the open like this,” Greer mutters, plucking the notecard from its staples. “It's no your fault the agent who put it here didna read their own notes.” Patting the canister, she says, “We'll see what we can do about some sort of box or visual shield for it. If none can be made or found, it's the Dark Vault for this one.”

“You--” Myka starts, then stops, seeming unsure as they head to the Holding area. “Are you going to need my help in there, too?”

Greer feels herself smile grimly; she recognizes the look of someone who has seen the contents, and what they can do. “Nay. I'll not ask that of ye. Any of ye.” She feels more than hears the sigh of relief as they go to their next task, but has no such feeling herself; something or someone triggered the knife, and until she is sure it will not happen again, she won't consider the problem solved.

\--- --- ---

They manage to move only two more artifacts. Pete and Steve run into some trouble with a particularly mischievous set of keys, and by the time Greer manages to help them subdue it, it is late. She calls a halt, which prompts a round of weary cheers.

“Welp,” Pete says as they trudge up the stairs, “I guess we can catch the last movie-- It should be _The Old Dark House._ ”

“Karloff?” Greer interjects, interested, surprising all of them, including herself.

“ _You_ know about Boris Karloff?” Pete asks, sounding impressed. “But I thought Artie said you--” A sharp elbow in the ribs from Myka silences him.

Greer knows what he's about to say, and replies, “Nay, I dinna leave the Warehouse, but I _do_ have a projector in my room. Or I did,” she adds, glancing at Artie.

He claps his hands together and bows to her. “Never fear, your sanctum has been guarded in your absence.”

Pete's brow wrinkles. “Absence? But you _just said_ \--”

Greer is thankful for the opening of the umbilicus door, interrupting Pete's query, but upon seeing the person entering, decides that perhaps that was hasty. The woman walking in is the most accurate personification of the concept of _trouble_ that she has ever seen: High, wide cheekbones under a broad brow, milky skin shining in contrast with long, straight, dark hair-- and a flash of devilry around the dark brown eyes and full mouth. “H.G.!” Myka shouts, prompting a rush of bodies for hugs, pats, and slaps on the woman's graceful back. Greer is glad for the surge of questions, which overshadow her breathlessness.

 _So this is Agent Wells,_ she thinks. After the eyes she had forced away traitorously rove back, she scolds, _Ye dinna have time for it. Ye never do._ But she can't draw away her gaze, as hard as she tries.

“Luck, an earlier flight,” Wells says in a high-brow accent and lilting voice. “Standby is a delightful thing.”

 _Of course she's English. Definitely trouble,_ Greer thinks decisively. _And that will be enough of that._

As she watches, Wells catches sight of her, artful eyebrows arching. A pause follows, then she says, “Who's this, then? A new recruit?”

Greer and Artie both laugh, hers perhaps a bit more bitter. “I'm an old hand, only brought back for the latest crisis,” Greer says, making herself sound bored. “I'll no be in your hair once it's dealt with.”

Wells' eyebrows had risen higher with her speech. _Good, maybe she hates Scots, and this'll be easier._  

“Wait a minute,” Pete starts, “You don't _go_ \--”

“You've arrived in time for the movie, Agent Wells,” Artie interjects at his most enthusiastic, which is his _let's-not-dwell-on-this-because-it's-not-for-you-to-know_ voice. “Everyone was about to head back to the B &B, why don't you all go? You'll be late for the movie!” he adds as he ushers them out the door. “Enjoy! Have fun! Make popcorn!” The door slams shut, and he leans against it, letting out a breath. Fixing Greer in his gaze, he mutters, “I didn't figure Pete for the one who would catch on first.”

Greer shakes her head. “Bering knows, I'm sure of it, only she's tactful enough not to pry.” The questions she had struggled to answer when they had been working earlier prompted a few forehead wrinkles from Myka. She knows the jig is already up, but it's more comfortable for her to pretend she's somewhat normal while she can.

“They'll all know, then, by the time they get to L-- the B&B.” He sighs, settling in his desk chair. “Why don't you just tell them?”

They have had this conversation before, and they both know it. “I canna command agents who pity me.”

“A better _understanding_ is not necessarily the same--” Artie stops, rubbing his forehead. “H.G. spent some time in the Bronze Sector, you know. Maybe you two could-- you know--” his fingers mesh together-- “talk about it.”

A flash of that nobly lined face races through her thoughts with a sliver of heat at the thought of _other_ things coming together, and Greer shakes her head, looking away, tone turning caustic. “Och, aye, that's a lovely conversation starter. 'We've both been trapped inside ourselves for decades, let's chat about the madness that can bring.'” She gives a bitter snort.

Artie leans back in his chair, looking at her with guilt that isn't his to carry. “If I ask for a meeting with the regents-- you've sort of been grandfathered in, you know, perhaps I could--” His hands wave in a rolling motion, standing in for further words.

They've had this conversation before, too. “Yes, that'll be grand," she says sarcastically. "'Let's let her out, carrying knowledge of our secrets, and her with _such_  experience in the modern world. She'll no stick out at all like a pooched thumb.'" Firmly, she finishes, "It willna work.”

Artie points at her, suddenly, forcefully. “Agent Wells did it, don't say never. She went in over a century ago, didn't even have the little snapshots you have to catch her up, and she's adapted very well. Well--” he hums, his hand waffling. “After a few-- ah-- precarious missteps...” He trails off, rubbing the back of his head vigorously; there's much he isn't saying, Greer knows from this gesture. “Anyway, the point is, it could be done, but you'll need character references, and for _that--_ ”

Greer understands well enough what he means, even if he doesn't finish the thought. She takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Is my room still in the same place?”

“Oh! Yes,” Artie says, wisely not pursuing the previous conversational thread. “Just past the Gooery-- er, the Neutralizer Processing Center.”

“I imagine 'Gooery' is Ms. Donovan's term?”

Artie winces a bit. “Yeah, just-- ah-- don't call her that, okay? She nearly took out a regent the first time they tried.”

Greer can't stop the smile that tugs at the corner of her lips; she's imagined doing such a thing a few times herself. “Good night, Artie.”

“Night,” he grunts, watching her go out into the Warehouse proper, a small sigh escaping as he leans back in his chair once more. “Don't give up yet, kid, okay?” he whispers to an empty room.

\--- --- ---

Her room is just as she left it: The single bed, covered in the quilt she had made herself; the projector perched across the room from the one blank wall; the bookshelf with her favorites, pilfered from the Warehouse library over the years. Crossing to it, she pulls a copy of _Treasure Island_  from its place, letting it fall open to the single battered photograph tucked in its pages. Her parents, posing for the photo they had spent three weeks's pay to have taken, look out at her with solemn black-and-white faces, but they are long dead. As she always does, she kisses her fingers and touches them to the photo, then replaces the book with its precious cargo, where it will stay until she has to go back to the blackness, and the only image she will have of them will be in her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm continuing-- I've received far more response than I expected in the last 48 hours or so since I first posted this. (Thank you for your kind words and kudos.) Given how firmly this has hold of me, my other fics are going to suffer a bit, but that's okay! I'm having fun, and I hope you all will, too.

Greer wakes from a dream that is actually a memory, but she can't decide if it heralds a good or bad day: Mrs. Frederic, as timeless as she has ever been, escorting her from the little room full of statues, all in the same helpless position, questioning her as they duck into a tiny room with a minuscule table, hours seeming to go by as the woman switches between queries and probing silence.

 _“How did you find this place?”_ echoes in her ears as she rises, and she scowls, grousing in the present day, “By the hand of the devil.” That hadn't been her original response, but it is now. Her mother had called her senses a gift from God, but since they had led her here, Greer at this point is a bit doubtful of that assessment.

She dresses, chiding herself with the thoughts that pass through-- _foolish girl, chasing that book across country_ and _you couldn't have taken up sewing in the stead of reading?_ \-- but she shakes them away after a few moments. She's entertained them enough in her time in the Bronze Sector. Greer knows she is lucky, being as educated as she is, given where she had come from. Lower-class women had not been encouraged in intellectual pursuits in her day, and it had only been her father's library that had allowed her such knowledge. He had been an assisting professor in Edinburgh, until a scandal had driven him, his wife, and young daughter to seek refuge in the states, and he had paid more to transport his books than he had for the three of them put together. To his mind, failing to teach his child to read them would have been tantamount to heresy, given the effort he had put in, and damn society's expectations of gender.

She smiles to herself, remembering how her father tended to fall into lecture, even after he had been reduced to a factory worker. Evenings in his study had always been interesting. She had learned geography, astronomy, mathematics, Latin, and even a bit of philosophy. These days, her education is sorely outdated, even supplemented by the books she's borrowed from the library in the Warehouse, but she can only spend so many hours in study when the Warehouse demands her attention.

She staunchly staves off another wave of upbraiding, taking her worn leather-cased kit out from the desk drawer. Lovingly, she snaps it open and runs her hands over the objects in their custom slots, a few of the solely beneficial artifacts housed in this place: The light bulb belonging to the artist who had come up with it as a symbol of an idea, which aids her when she felt stuck on an item's placement; an old dowsing rod belonging to one of the original white settlers of America, which helps her on the more difficult to locate troublemakers; her protective goggles plus a spare set nestled inside; several more bits and bobs that come in handy. Greer belts it onto her hip, feeling more herself with the movement, and starts out the door.

The agents ought to be arriving in about an hour, if they had been listening to her instructions the night before. She has time enough to breakfast with Artie, at least-- she grins when she remembers that he'll grouch. He feels obligated to cook a proper breakfast for her when she's around, even though he usually just eats cereal or store-bought pastries when he's alone, and it makes him grumpy. Artie is at his most entertaining when he is irritated.

This is the fourth occasion she has had the luck to work with him; she's worked with numerous others, but he is the best agent she's seen in her times roaming the Warehouse. She wonders when she is put back, if she will be needed again before he is gone, or if by the time she is temporarily freed again, he will be dead, but pushes that morbid speculation away; it isn't helpful. Besides, that's another reason he's the best: Few agents can boast that they've survived more than three decades dealing with the sorts of things they run into, because most of them end up dead, disappeared, or disabled by an artifact. _The only reason I'm still around is because the majority of the time, I'm a statue,_ she thinks wryly as she climbs the last steps to Artie's rooms.

She considers, as she knocks, if it is as strange for him to see her time and again, always the same age, as it is for her to see him growing old. _Probably no,_ she decides, remembering that he had had contact with Mrs. Frederic, too. “What's for breaking the fast today?” she asks as he waves her in.

“Eggs. Sausage. There's some bread in the cupboard,” he replies, tone short as he takes most of the sausage for himself, a subtle punishment for having to make the breakfast she had never once asked him to cook, this morning or any of the ones before.

A smile threatens to shine through; instead, she busies herself with toast, the little machine that manufactures it not so strange to her after a few experiences with it. “Coffee?” she asks hopefully; she has never had any sense of smell or taste, perhaps to make room for the senses she has that most do not, and she can't tell by looking if the brew in the pot is fresh.

“Yeah.” Artie's face is buried in an aged book, but he lifts his eyes as she sets her unbuttered toast on the table to free her hands. “I've never understood why you don't put butter on your toast. It's unnatural.”

She squashes another private smile; she has never told him that she can't taste anything. “It ruins the crunch of it.” She brings her black coffee to the table, ready for the exclamations that _doesn't she want cream and sugar? He has some._ For all his expertise in unpredictable items, he himself rarely acts other than she expects, and she bears them with a stoic expression.

“Will I have a full staff today?” she inquires, her way of asking if he's found any new trouble for the agents to track down.

“Hmm? Oh.” His head raises from the book, then falls back as he comprehends. “No, in fact. Something in Mumbai is causing mass blackouts-- and in India, 'mass' is _not_ insubstantial-- I'm thinking something belonging to a hypnotist?” He quirks his lip; Greer is sure he doesn't realize he's doing it. “Or a heavy drinker.” He returns to the book with a rather pointed glance at her, and she smirks internally. She isn't sure what the others might think of Artie in this state, but Greer finds it endearing; to her, it means he regards her as friend enough so as not to feel the need to be polite all the time. She thinks back, and realizes that Artie is the only friend she's made in her time here. Mrs. Frederic, the only other person she has seen more than twice, had not exactly been the sort one bonded with.

 _Snap out of it._  It's been a long time since she woke to a day of work in the Warehouse with such a wallowing mind. She had thought she had resigned herself to a dedicated if not exactly cheerful service of the Warehouse many years ago, but something has changed, and she's not sure she has the time to figure out what or why. She has brought her own papers to peruse over breakfast this morning.

It strikes her how enormous this task is-- it is going to be harder than she'd first thought. Nearly every section has disturbances, except the Dark Vault-- thank Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Bride-- and she wonders if the upheaval leading to Claudia becoming caretaker is the cause. It has to be, really, otherwise something more sinister is going on, and that is not something she wants to be party to cleaning up.

From what Claudia had said, the intention in disconnecting the caretaker ribbon had been to prevent Paracelsus from killing Mrs. Frederic, but they had been just a hair too late-- while they had managed to stop the Warehouse from collapsing, the damage to Mrs. Frederic had been too great, and she had died not too long after. Greer, not quite adjusted to the speed of this perky, energetic new caretaker's speech, doesn't remember exactly how that had led to _Claudia--_  well, no matter. This is the landscape she must navigate, at any rate.

She works on formulating a loose plan of attack, sipping coffee to fuel her mind, until the buzzer that senses motion at the gate goes off. “Rise and shine,” Artie grumbles, heaving himself from his chair and gathering up the notes he's made.

Greer can't stop the smile at this; he says this every morning, but she finally has a response, one she has been saving. “Ever since the last time I was out, I've been after reminding myself to say this one to ye,” she begins, ignoring the groan already issuing from Artie's lips. “Rise and shine? I'm surprised ye can crawl out of bed and glow ever so dimly.”

“Ha,” he says dryly, giving her an exasperated look over his spectacles. “Haven't heard that one before.”

“I canna stay current, so ye'll have to stomach it,” she replies, a spark of mischief in her tone as she precedes him out of his rooms into his office.

“Has anyone ever mentioned that your Scottish shows more in the morning than at any other time?” he mutters as he rummages through the papers on his desk, but she knows he doesn't expect a response, so she doesn't bother trying to come up with one. She hadn't known that, anyway; no one had ever spent enough time with her to tell her, before Artie.

“Oh, and Greer?” He pauses in his arranging.

“Aye?” Artie is the only person in her limited world who had ever taken the time to say her name right-- with a straight tongue on the Rs, a slight breathy H before and after the Es, and a delicate breath after the last consonant.

“It's not a bad thing.” Catching himself in a maudlin moment, he clears his throat noisily, shuffling the files about a bit more enthusiastically than he needs to, but it's too late: She is touched, and feels her eyes moisten as the door to the umbilicus shushes open.

“Who brought do-o-onuts?” sings Pete-- it can only be him, with that flippant attitude.

“And I carried them, so there are actually some left,” Myka adds, with a smirk in his direction.

“Ah!” Artie says with victory, snatching a bear claw from the proffered box, stifling any remarks from Greer with an _I-know-I-know-but-it's-just-the-one_  look. She rolls her still-damp eyes and turns her back, putting up the maps with the affected areas marked instead of scolding.

“Pastry in the morning, a particularly _American_ habit I've never understood,” comes the cultured accent. Knowing that comment is aimed in her direction, possibly meant to bond them, Greer finds herself hoping that the troublesome Wells will be one of the agents sent to Mumbai exactly as much as she hopes that she won't. She doesn't turn, only grunts low in her throat to say, _Yes, I hear you speaking to me, but I offer no opinion._

She finishes the arrangement of the maps, marking hot spots with red penciled crosses, and finally faces the room of people behind her. Pete is making his donut talk, and Myka is fluttering her eyelids in exasperation. Steve is waiting with arms resting on the back of a chair, body loose and face pleasant-- he must be a morning person. Wells is leaning against a rare patch of unobscured wall, dressed in vest and collared shirt and slacks that hug her thighs only to widen and fall looser at the knee, hips cocked and arms folded under her breasts, looking like a rogue. The sharpest-dressed rogue Greer has ever seen, but still... She forces her eyes not to linger; she knows that Wells has seen her looking, and doesn't care to take in the smug look that flashes ever so briefly across the agent's face.

“Artie, you first,” she says, pretending to have forgotten a spot on one of the maps her body hides from view to obscure what she is sure are pink cheeks.

“Right. Pete and Myka, you are going to India.”

“Naan, here I come,” Pete crows; Greer can feel his fist pump through the air even though he's behind her, a wave of disturbed particles.

“If you have _time,_ between the group blackouts, the chaos that ensues, the confused authorities-- who, by the way, are _not_ going to want to help you, not after the-- well, good luck,” Artie finishes, handing them each a folder and a plane ticket. “You should hurry, your flight leaves within the hour.”

Pete is pulling Myka by the arm, and she calls over her shoulder, “After  _what, Artie?!”_ but Pete has her through the door before an answer can be given. Artie shrugs, and gestures to Greer to take the floor as he opens, then promptly closes his suddenly buzzing Farnsworth.

She rotates back to face her reduced audience, the intense eyes of Agent Wells boring into her, Steve's good-natured readiness, Artie's distracted attention. She knows she's in for it; of the two agents she could pick, Steve is clearly the more trustworthy-- he has a _steadiness_  to him that might explain why he can work the Feng Shui Spiral-- which is why she had sent him with Pete the day before. It's Wells she'll have to take, to evaluate her more dubious ability since Artie might not always be available to help and one or both of them might have to go solo and therefore without her supervision.... Greer curses internally as she starts her brief.

“Right, Artie and Jinks, you will start with the Jack Parsons aisle. There's something there that doesna belong, I think, as that area was perfectly balanced when last I--” she takes a split second to search for an non-revealing term-- “checked, and inventory on the surface shows that no new items have been shelved there since then.” She hands them a snapshot of the bit of map they need, with the area highlighted; even Artie doesn't know his way around well enough to go without it.

“We'll all meet back here to report before moving on.” She waves at Steve and Artie in dismissal; they leave. “Wells, while they are in the Parsons aisle, you and I will take the Crescent Round. There are a few aisles we should investigate, though we'll make a priority of the Berkeley section. I've little doubt we'll find the trouble in his domain.”

“Oh?” The reply is lightly curious as well as skeptical.

“Did ye have a better idea?”

Greer regrets asking immediately when Wells pushes from the wall in a graceful, arching movement, sauntering over to stand close to her. One long finger taps the chart of the enlarged area as she leans in, causing their shoulders to brush. “Andrew Ure's inventions are here,” she says, voice neutral and also somehow not. “I rather thought they might be causing the static in that area, given the nature of some of his work.”

Despite the fact that Greer knows it's a good observation, her hackles threaten to rise, and she fights the urge to pull away sharply, easing onto a hip instead-- the one farther from Wells. “A Scotsman instead of an Irishman, hm?” she asks, a bit archly.

“If the kilt fits.” Wells's response is almost a croon, and Greer is overcome with the desire to box her impudent ears-- the woman is likely near as old as if not older than she-- but suppresses it; strong emotions are never a good idea when plunging into the stacks. She settles for muttering internally about cultural appropriation while rolling her eyes, grabbing up the maps they'll need and stalking out the door without waiting to see if Wells is behind her. It's only knowing full well she can't supervise Wells without actually being _with_ her that stops her at the bottom of the stairs to let the other woman catch up.

“If that was supposed to be a punishment, it didn't work,” Wells says neutrally as her boots clang down the last few steps, leaving the interpretation of that statement open. “And my suggestion wasn't meant to be a slight on your country of origin, you know,” she adds, more seriously.

“I'm aware, thank ye.”

Greer's short tone is not lost on the agent, she can tell, but the reply she receives doesn't seem to acknowledge it. “How _do_  you roll your Rs in such a way? Did the Scots start doing it to make up for the English and their devastating lack of them?” Wells actually appears to be making a self-deprecating joke, and Greer spares her a glance.

“S'pose,” she replies briefly, though she rather wants to laugh; she hadn't expected Wells to be _funny._

“Now I see why our cultures have been at odds,” the dark-haired agent observes dryly. “Ever noticed the English tend to be wordy?”

She laughs now, a short chuckle that she chokes off quickly, but she can't resist feeding the joke. “Aye.”

Wells lets out a brief guffaw, and with that release of sound, it's easier between them, their tension fading as they stride towards their goal. After a few quiet minutes, Wells begins to regale her with tales of artifacts they pass, some of them from personal experience. “And this one--” she gestures to an innocuous-looking candlestick in a clear cushioned box-- “nearly burnt away all my hair when I caught it from a fall. I looked rather like a man for a time.”

 _As if anyone could ever mistake you for anything but a woman._ “Why didna ye let it fall?”

“I would have done, except I didn't want the whole place to go up in flames.” She indicates the label. _WARNING: can shoot flames thirty feet out on sharp impact._ “Why do you think it's marked for the bottom shelf only, stuck in a box?”

“Aye, I see.” They move on; they're nearly there when a static charge comes barreling through. They both dive for the floor-- and the same sheltered corner.

“Oof!” says Wells, the first unrefined thing Greer has heard out of her mouth.

 _It_ would _take physical harm to crack her,_ Greer thinks sourly, groaning as she rolls off of her. “Are you alright?” she asks, dusting her front off and reaching down a hand.

“Yes,” Wells grunts as she grips the offered arm and pulls herself up, “but I think now that we've collided so-- _intimately,_  I ought to know your name.”

Greer balks at the tone, not noticing the rising depth of her accent. “I'm sure ye ken it well enough--”

“I want to hear it from _you._ ” The intensity of her voice on the last, though fleeting, surprises the both of them. Recovering, she sticks out her hand. “I'm Helena Wells, also known as H.G.”

Feeling silly, Greer grips the hand. “Greer Thomson.”

“Greeher,” Wells attempts, frowning. “No, that can't be right. Say it again?” Finding herself obliged, she tries again. “Grehera.”

“Closer. _Greer._ ” She feels her chest tighten at this earnest effort from such an outwardly cool and effortless persona, added to by the fact that Wells hasn't let go her hand.

“Grheeehr-e.”

And just like that, with the last syllable a fading breath, she has it, and Greer nods, her throat feeling the need to swallow. _Lookit yerself, gone all shoogly over a name,_ she thinks firmly, disapprovingly at herself, even repeating it in her mother's sternest tone, but it doesn't make a bit of difference; Helena's face is glimmering with subdued pride and something she can't put her finger on, and as Greer feels a squeeze at her fingers before they are released, and she knows she's in more than a spot of trouble. “Perfect,” she manages, gesturing for them to continue. “We're nearby, shouldna be long now.”

“Why do you Scots say it that way? 'Shouldna'?” Helena mimics it precisely, the accent sounding odd with her other words.

She doesn't know the true answer, but something better comes to mind. “Weel,” Greer drawls for effect, even as she thinks, _Don't make it worse, eejit!_  “S'pose you English got the Ts in trade.” A delighted waterfall of laughter spills from Helena, who has to stop walking after a moment to remember how to breath properly, after which she seems more sternly composed, almost as if it's to make up for the lapse.

The sound of it stays with Greer for the rest of the day. She hardly remembers whether it had been Ure or Berkeley or some other scientist's invention in Crescent Round that had caused the trouble, only that she and Helena had dealt with it without too much trouble, and had reached Artie's office before he did.

Waiting there now, Greer pulls down their conquered section and places it in the “tentative” folder, pasting up their next assignment. If they all prove so quick, she might be able to make up for the previous day's loss of efficiency. She wants to insert the observation that _fun_ hadn't interfered much with their speed into her warring mind, even as she knows it's unwise, but such is the sensitivity of a brain-- the moment she thinks it, however quietly, it's there, among all the other little battles she's been thrown into fighting.

She's keenly aware of the displaced air marking Helena's presence behind her, taking up a different, closer bare bit of wall, but just as sultry in her waiting. If Greer closes her eyes and focuses, she can tell exactly how many steps it would take to--

 _“Never again,”_ Artie declares, his bag hitting the desktop with a squelch. “All Parsons artifacts are now under the care of _not me.”_  Greer gets a good look at him and winces; he's what her mother would have called “clear drookit”, drenched from head to toe.

A sniff echoes from the wall. “What is that?”

“Jet fuel,” Steve interjects as he enters, nose wrinkled at the scent in the more enclosed space; his clothes are only lightly speckled with the stuff. “The jar fell into his bag and broke.”

“That wouldna be the.. self-replicating jet fuel, would it?” Greer is distinctly glad she can't smell it; she's been told vehicle fuel is pervasive. The fuel is handy, but troublesome; it multiplies itself until whatever container it is in is full and the pressure changes, but Artie's bag, given how it's leaking, is _not_ airtight. She wants to ask how he managed to nullify the effect on the fuel already in the bag and on his clothes, but the look on his face is enough to keep her mum.

“The very same,” Artie growls, glaring at the increasingly flammable papers now adorning his desk. “Greer, detox my Tesla and clean this up. I'm taking a bath.”

“Sure,” she calls behind her easily, rummaging for a towel to grasp it with, “but when should I be expecting--”

 _“A very long bath.”_ The words come in a firm, loud monotone from behind the door to Artie's rooms.

“Och, aye,” she mutters to herself, annoyed. Dropping the soaked stun gun into a neutralizer bag to keep it from dripping until she can get to the workshop, staring at the sopping desktop fixedly, she continues under her breath, “And I'll be taking yer messages and pressing yer trousers while ye're indisposed, to be sure, milord.” The only indication that she's been overheard is a quiet yet melodious chuckle from somewhere near the scrap of empty brick.


	3. Chapter 3

The next four days, Mumbai having turned out to be simply mass hysteria combined with terrorism, Greer has two full teams of searchers. She has entrusted Myka and Helena with her dowsing rod, and having had it from Artie that Steve is more than capable of managing Pete, who will be the human version of that tool, she sets out on her own missions. The sector nearest the NPC, the closest trouble to her rooms, is her goal at this moment. She's losing sleep worrying about the possibilities should she emerge from her bedroom at an inopportune moment.

“Yes, _that's_ it, eejit,” she mutters to herself, shaking her head as she navigates the aisles, her ears-that-are-not-ears perked for any change in the energy of the particles around her. She knows perfectly well that it's rubbish; the stacks-- her private name for Warehouse 13 is the Library of Living Nightmares; the Dark Vault is Hell-- do not perturb her in the least. In her early days, before she had accepted her fate, she had wandered up and down on restless nights, familiarizing herself with the delicate differences between atmospheres in the sections, learning their breaking points. She knows that this particular area, the one she knows best, is not even close to high risk, even if it is off-kilter.

The cause of the disturbance is obvious, once her senses twitch to it. Two artifacts have shifted and are now touching, and after dipping them both in the canister swinging at her hip, she carefully replaces them. The feeling of the place is instantly better, and though she'll still trouble to visit again in a day or so, she has no more real worry for it.

It's late in the day, and Greer does her last check-ins on the other two teams. To her surprise, both are in the final stages of finishing their final assignment, and she only stays to be sure it's done before retiring to the workshop.

The cozy room is filled to the brim with cupboards and shelves, all swelling with copper wire, various types of batteries, wood piles, solvent, and tools ranging from soldering iron to circular saw. Artie's Tesla stunner is still not functioning properly, but the efficiency today is allowing her a second look at it.

Drawn up in the detailed world of Tesla's creation, sounds filter away from her awareness, and the light, cultivated voice jars her. “It's still being stubborn, I see.”

Greer's head jerks up, eyes wide until she recognizes the interloper. “Aye.” She holds Helena's gaze a moment more, but when nothing else seems forthcoming, she bends her head back to her task.

“I didn't mean to startle you,” Helena says after a few more seconds, striding closer. “Could I have a look?”

Curious, Greer raises her eyes enough to arch a brow. “What would you know of it?”

“Clearly my reputation does not precede me.” Helena is looking at her with an amused disbelief on her face. “I'd thought Myka was putting me on.”

 _So they are talking about me when they're at home,_ she thinks, though not with any real bitterness or surprise. It is the reality of her mysterious appearances that people will talk about them. “Well, I've checked the wiring, which is intact, and the components all seem to be unharmed, so...” Greer shrugs.

“Here, give it over,” Helena cajoles, extending a beckoning hand. “I've met Tesla, you know.” She peers at the weapon, first from one angle, then another. “I think...” She pulls her own from her belt, holding them the same. “Ah, this is it.” She cants the stunner just so and points to a solder point Greer had missed, tucked under the edge of the handle. “Just here.”

Willing to try it if it will keep her from bending over the workbench any longer, Greer takes it gingerly from the pale hand it's now resting in, heating the specially made solder until it's pliable enough for what she needs. Carefully, she touches up the eroded spot, and sets it to cool; this formula takes a few minutes to set properly, rather than a few seconds.

Helena knows this, or she wouldn't be leaning against a countertop in what Greer has come to recognize as her waiting pose, saucy as it is casual. Somehow, the woman can make a person want to look at her without actually moving, and Greer is certain, as she cleans the soldering iron, that she's not the only person this works on: Pete is anything but discreet, and there has been some interesting interplay between Myka and the Englishwoman, and of _course_ there is-- they're not quite normal, but they're far closer than she is.

“Is it true that you _never_ leave the Warehouse?” Helena asks, head tilting ever so slightly.

The iron clunks onto the workbench with more force than a mere drop would explain; it seems she's been tired of this game longer than it's been happening. “Drawn the short straw, have ye?”

“I'm sorry?”

Greer explains in a knowing tone, “Every group with a modicum of intelligence can't help but poke at it sooner or later, but usually just one person is the questioner when mere supposition isna enough anymore.” She sweeps her hands in front of her, saying, _Here you are._

Helena stands from her lean, head tilting the other way, expression unreadable. “I'll admit, there's been talk. But that's not why I asked.”

“Oh, it isn't?” Greer says skeptically, feeling insulted; it's been enough time for the new connection to be ready, and she picks up the Tesla and fires it without looking at the test panel to her right, both their ears crackling with the sound of the electricity, her eyes firm on Helena's. “Well, thanks for the help, but as ye can see, it's working just the now.”

“Indeed I can,” Wells says dryly, with a bite to her words. She holsters her own Tesla smartly, and turns tail, shouting, “You're welcome” over her shoulder as she exits.

Greer isn't sure anymore that she was right; most who had been the askers in the past had wheedled, working hard to convince her of their good intentions, but Helena had been angry. The soldering iron flies into its bin, and she stalks out of the workshop and along the path to her rooms, uncertain if she's angry at herself in the present or herself in the past.

\--- --- ---

Greer wakes up late the next day; Saturdays aren't lively days for the Warehouse, and she can afford to laze a bit. The percolator in her room still works, and she brews some coffee, reviewing her plan for the day. She technically has four sections she has to inspect after their adjustments, but she can already sense that all is well around her corner of the stacks.

Artie pokes his head in to bring her a breakfast roll, some sort of flaky strip with a type of jam or filling spread over its length and wrapped into a colorful spiral. “Thanks,” she says, saluting him with it. “Anything doing?”

“No, I've just got a few errands in town. Any requests?”

Assuring him she's alright-- she had just had him make a run for some groceries the other day-- she wishes him a safe drive, wondering aloud once he's gone what it's like to travel in a car; she's never been in one.

“You don't want to know what it's like to ride with Artie, belie-eve me,” a sprightly voice responds, and Greer jumps from her seat to see Claudia with her lean frame wrapped around the doorframe, grinning at her. “I _never_ get tired of that,” she says.

“What is it with people startling me lately?” Greer asks rhetorically, throwing a mild scowl in Claudia's direction; she's still not sure where she stands with this one. “You included.”

“Ahh, yes, the _startling,_ ” the caretaker segues, swinging her body all the way round the frame and into the room. “I'm told there was a bit of a negative energy flare-up in-- let's see-- the Mercado grid?” The Mercado grid is the section surrounding the workshop, and Greer instantly knows where this is going. “Y'see,” Claudia says conversationally, flopping sideways into one of the armchairs, “Mrs. F was pre-etty clear on your professionalism, so I must confess myself whammied when I found out that was where _you_ were, at-- oh-- six oh nine yesterday evening, the same time as the energy spike. Alright, alright,” she admits with a candid, playful voice, “that's not the part that gets me. The part that gets me--” And suddenly she's sitting upright in the armchair, elbows leaning on her knees, her eyes serious-- “is the part where _Artie_ was the one who had to go calm it down.”

“I wasna aware of such a disturbance,” Greer says cautiously.

Claudia's eyes narrow from the bottom up, giving her a suspicious, stern aspect. “No? When I've been given to understand that you gave your dowsing rod to someone else yesterday, and still proceeded to clear three threats without it, all by your little lonesome?” Something more adult has slipped into her words now.

Greer resists the urge to shrink from this suddenly terrifying child. “I wasna aware,” she repeats firmly, though she feels like wavering. “If there was a flare, it wasna close enough to where I was for me to notice it. I was leaving Mercado grid at that time.”

The slitted eyes blink at her, appraising. “And you always keep such accurate watch of the time when changing sections?”

“Actually, _aye,_ I do, and not just when moving locations,” Greer says, a bit of the fear fading to make way for offense. “You were an agent-- ye ken that minutes and seconds matter as well as I do.” She pulls a pocket watch from her kit, thumbing it open to show that it is synced precisely with the Warehouse computers. “And ye know ye canna work in the Dark Vault without a sense of the time, or it will soon cease to matter to ye.” She stands, a touch of fire in her blue eyes. “I am a professional, and I know this Warehouse top to bottom, but I _canna fix a thing I dinna know exists.”_

Claudia watches her for a few moments, leg swinging over the edge of the chair arm, then shrugs. “No problem-o, Last-Name-First. Just checking in.” She pops up and salutes. “Thanks for fixing Artie's Tesla, he was wicked peeved without it and life is gonna be so-o-o much smoother now he's got his toy back.” She starts to duck out the door, then leans back in. “Oh, and that whole 'wild brown mane over angry robin's egg eyes' thing? Really works for you, you _rock_  it.” She makes an odd symbol with the fingers on her hand and disappears.

Bewildered, and still a bit worked up from her outburst, Greer stretches a dark hank of hair out for inspection, just realizing that it's been loose instead of tied back, like when she works the shelves. The looking glass-- a perfectly normal one, thank the saints-- shows her hair to be erratically disheveled, like she'd just risen from bed and hadn't brushed it yet. And she hadn't; Artie had appeared, then Claudia, hardly the typical on Saturdays, meaning she hadn't had the time.

Bringing out her brush now, she combs through it distractedly, her thoughts mainly trying to make sense of what has just happened with Claudia. She'd underestimated the girl, Greer decides; the young caretaker is, in her own way, as frightening as Mrs. Frederic could be. There's something eerie about someone able to switch so quickly from jovial to somber and back again, and able to make such innocent words so menacing. She understands the need for a caretaker to be sure of their staff, so she isn't too irritated at Claudia's behavior after the fact-- she's been through that gauntlet before-- but she hopes it won't be recurring.

Pulling her personal terminal out from the sliding panel in her desktop, she types in a search, for the night before. _She_ may have been too far from where it was at that time, but she hadn't been the only person in that general area, and remembering the-- had it really been an argument? She isn't sure she can call it that-- fine, the _event_ the evening before, she knows the direction Helena had started off in. When she sees the location of the negative spike, her thought is confirmed, and she frowns. Had she truly upset Wells that much? She remembers speaking abruptly, but doesn't recall anything nasty-- until the Tesla shot and her eye contact. _Alright, perhaps that was a bit aggressive..._

But she is so exhausted with the same drama playing out. Warehouse agents, by nature of the traits they are chosen for, are inquisitive; Greer is a book with a lock on, and they just always have to find the key. She's settled, these last dozen times, for simply keeping the details out of their hands, letting them realize the general outlines. This time, she hadn't humored any questions before becoming irritated.

Something in her is changing. Artie's arguments hold more weight for her, this time. The status quo isn't as tolerable as it was before; her mind is distracted by a thing, a quality or property or effect, that she has no name for, even as she knows it's there.

 _“Agent Wells did it, don't say never.”_ Artie's words, the poke of air from his finger, enter her thoughts again, and she sighs. She _does_ have a name for it: there is precedent for a prisoner to be set free.

She has wakened past her hundredth year anniversary in the Warehouse, and she hasn't ever really lived her own life. She's barely aged; twenty when she had followed the book to this place, her body now has only added perhaps three years to that, but in that body lives a grieving soul that can't remember what the sun feels like on her skin. Artie's friendship is making her wish for things she hasn't experienced in a long time, and the appearance of someone who has done what she has, until now, thought of as impossible...

For the first time in a long time, Greer is strongly unhappy. She feels like crying, and screaming, and getting angry at someone. She wants to just curl up on her bed and never leave it, she wants to run through the umbilicus door before it closes, she _wants,_ something she has worked hard at not doing. As she recognizes these feelings, gives names to them, she feels overfull, like her soul is spilling out of her because there's _no room for it anymore._

There isn't any place in her life for the tiny grain of hope that has rooted itself in her heart, and she stands from her desk, snatching up a ribbon, and ties back her hair, face set in determined lines. She is too _useful_ for the Regents to ever let her go, so she will have to force herself back to contentment. She belts on her kit, checking the pocket watch and calculating in her head. Yes; if she goes now, she will have time enough for her work, and she will be able to do it with a quiet soul.


	4. Chapter 4

Monday approaches, and the agents are back; they will continue their work now, which is now going to be a little easier with their progress. “Good morning,” Greer says, smiling at them all. “Our diligence has led to calm in Mercado Grid, Crescent Round, and the Philosophy Plot. Select artifacts can now be re-homed. Steve, I will ask ye to go to the Feng Shui Spiral, accompanied by--” She pauses here. She had been going to say Helena, but her presence is vibrating on a molecular level, and whoever goes cannot agitate Steve-- “Myka. Please mark whichever objects we have pulled that indicate they will be at home in any of those three areas, so that we can place them, but do not move them yet.”

She realizes, as they leave, that Pete and Helena are not exactly comfortable with one another. They are friendly enough, but Greer isn't sure they're _friends,_  and given Helena's agitation... No, she's going to have to shift things around a bit. “Pete, Artie will be doing inventory in a few moments here, I'd like ye to assist him.” He grumbles, but goes out onto the balcony to wait. She turns to Helena, a calm smile on her face. “You and I will be mopping up a few minor imbalances in outlying sectors.” This isn't shown on the board; she had planned on tackling the mess that is Freud 143X, but that isn't a good idea now. It will wait.

Wells hasn't said a word since they had all piled in half an hour ago. Her arms are folded more tightly than is typical, and her waiting pose is tense instead of easy. She speaks now, but none of her usual playfulness or eagerness shows through. “I can't decide if it's us or Pete and Artie that have the scut work.”

“Scut?” Greer looks distant for a moment, trying to place the word.

“You know, the work no one else wants to do. The boring stuff.”

Greer smiles a little. “It willna be boring, that I assure you. Perhaps easier, if we've any luck at all. I'm after clearing more areas so the re-homing willna be so... slow.” A thought comes to her. “I havena seen Lena about, do you know where she's been? It would be nice to have a second person who can use the Spiral.” Lena is a quiet, perceptive soul-- a rare calm presence in the Warehouse-- and the once she'd had the chance to work with her had been very smooth indeed.

But Helena's eyes have gone a darker brown; her face has lines of sadness in it now. “Lena died.”

“She--” Greer starts, surprised, but the moment with Artie her second day back, when he'd changed his word after starting another pops into her mind. “How?” is all she can think to say now, seeing the truth of it. Artie has always been fond of Lena, and if she'd not been wrapped up in her own problem, she would have seen his grief.

“It's not really my story to tell,” Helena says slowly, cautiously, “but suffice to say it was an artifact's effects.”

Greer nods solemnly. Most agents are killed by artifacts-- one way or another. “It happens to the best.” But she cannot stay regretful for long. “The tasks you and I are after doing today will lessen that risk. Shall we?” She gathers up the large map of the warehouse, folding its endless corners and tucking it into the rear pocket of her kit, snug between the leather and her waist, canister resting on her other hip, and beckons the dark-haired agent along behind her as she steps out.

Helena is silent, but not quiet as she follows: The air about her crackles with a restlessness of particles, and Greer pulls her aside into an alcove before they can get much farther than the bottom of the stairs. “Something is bothering ye,” she says quietly. “Perhaps we shouldna be dealing with artifacts today.”

A disbelieving breath puffs from Helena's chest. “Something is-- _Of course_ something is bothering me,” she hisses. “Or are you always so unapologetic after threatening someone and calling them a liar? Look at you, you're--” she flaps a hand at Greer-- “it's like you're at peace with it all.”

Something is ringing faintly in the back of Greer's head; recognizing it, she quickly opens the flap of her kit and pulls out a long strip of faded cloth. “Put this on-- I'm thinking we'll be needing to have this conversation elsewhere, and I canna get ye there as ye are without upsetting the residents.”

“The _residents,_ ” Helena mutters derisively, eyeing the cloth with suspicion. “What is this?”

“It belonged to St. Nicholas of Flue, it was one of his priestly vestments, “ Greer explains, gesturing for it to be put on, monitoring the energy around her as she speaks. “He was a great peacemaker. It instills diplomacy and enough calm to use it.”

“And what strange habit should I expect after wearing it?”

“It doesna have any ill effects,” Greer says a mite impatiently, “now please put it _on._ ” The unrest is building; she can feel little waves nearby as ripples in a pond. Helena is still staring at her, with no move to take the cloth, so she strides to the nearest terminal and types rapidly, entering the item number from memory. Stepping back, she invites Helena to look. “See for yerself.”

Dark eyes narrowed, Wells reads the inventory entry quickly, shooting a last doubtful look at Greer. “Fine,” she says, and slips it over her shoulders.

The pressure that has been building in the back of Greer's head lessens almost immediately, and she closes her eyes, senses questing out for any activated artifacts. There are a couple she'll have to check, judging from the vibrations; she deftly slips on a pair of purple gloves. “Thank ye. Now come with me, I've a few stops to make, and then we'll have our conversation.”

“Alright,” Helena says peacefully, following her with a calmer body and no argument. “Where are we going?”

“A few items were affected by your negative energy, so I'm after inspecting them to be sure they havena shifted or activated themselves.” Shutting her eyes again to concentrate, she sighs; she'll need the ladder for this one.

“Oh,” Helena says, “I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to harm the Warehouse.” She pauses, head tilted. “I should have been a bit more gracious.”

“You willna think that once we're away and ye've taken that off, I'm sure, but I appreciate the thought for the now,” Greer replies breathily, heaving herself up the ladder. The pair of shoes, as it ends up being, are subsiding on their own, and she can tell from the feel of it that they'll not need any neutralizer.

She climbs back down, replacing the ladder at the end of the aisle, and waves Helena along as they approach the next item. The air is shimmering with power; it's something strong, and she walks quickly to the nearest Neutralizer station, gripping the wand. Her other hand stretches out before her, palm and fingers at a right angle to her wrist and held up before her like a shield. She turns one way-- no, not there. The other direction is more helpful, and she is led to a large crate underneath the lowest shelf.

The thing is agitated; from the sensation of it, it should have been doused years ago, but having walked this sector but a few days past, Greer knows it has only just started. With a tingle of memory, she bends to review the label, and nods-- _Should have known_ \-- lifting the lid just enough to insert the nozzle and spray. The thing screams, echoing through the stacks, and then, with a final thump, is quiet.

Helena, despite the calming effect of the stole draped on her shoulders, shivers at the sound. “What was that?”

“ _That_ was a product of grief,” Greer says shortly, glancing back at the crate as she replaces the sprayer. “I've noticed they are often the quickest to respond to negative energy.” She closes her eyes once more, probing, but they can be away now; the issues have been nullified, and she takes a moment to decide where they should go. Helena is inspecting the label when Greer beckons to her, and a flash of something crosses her face as she follows, the emotion assuaged by the cloth hanging around her neck.

The trip seems to go quickly, and the door to her sanctum comes into view. Greer keys in the code; it pops open, and she gestures Helena in, who looks at her curiously. “What is this sector called?”

“It's no a sector,” Greer says, smiling faintly at the thought, “it's my private room, and there are wards against emotional interference in the very walls. I reasoned if I've upset ye, this is the place for ye to have it out wi' me.”

Helena walks in, looking around with interest. “I wouldn't say I'm going to have it out with you,” she begins as she lifts the cloth off her shoulders, then staggers, the stole slipping to the floor as she catches herself on the bookshelf.

“Sorry,” Greer says sheepishly, gathering it up to tuck back into her kit. “I'd forgotten to warn ye that the reversal of the dampening effects is rather sudden.”

Helena has turned now, and Greer can see her face: it is not angry, as she expected, but sad, and intense with something else she can't name. The pale throat convulses with a swallow, and the words that come out are quiet. “Was that really the body of a child in there?”

Greer nods, perching on the edge of her desk. “A sad story, that one.” She grimaces, but the look on Helena's face tells her that she won't be allowed to leave until she reveals it. “The mother wouldna let go the poor lass's body after she discovered her dead. She wouldna move from the ruins of the shop, and the mortician could only take the remains from her once she had starved herself to death in the waiting, so he set about to prepare them both for burial.”

Helena's eyes become shiny as Greer speaks, and when she speaks again, her voice is even more subdued than before. “What happened to him?”

Greer shakes her head. “He took his own life. So did the next mortician who tried to prepare the child. That was when the Warehouse was called in, and the body has been here ever since. It was a grim task, finding a place for her.” It had been the sole reason she had been brought from confinement, and she had been put back as soon as it was done.

“You were here for that?” Helena's voice sharpens.

Greer sighs. “Aye.” The label appears in her mind's eye: _Retrieved 29 November 1938, Danzig, Germany._  “It's no the only artifact I've placed that was created in the Kristallnacht, either.” It had been one of the worst birthdays in her life.

“I've heard of some of the atrocities from then,” Helena murmurs. “I wasn't there for them.” Her head lifts from her thoughts, and her gaze hones in on Greer. “I was in the Bronze Sector. And you were too, weren't you?”

“Aye.” The word is a mere breath, a resignation. “It's where I am when I'm no--” she gestures around them-- “here, working.”

“You're only brought back in a crisis, you said,” Helena continues, pushing from the bookshelf. “What did you do?”

It's a vague question, but Greer knows precisely what she means. The Bronze Sector is for the most dangerous of mankind, so what was the danger in Greer's existence? What atrocity might she have committed if she hadn't been locked away? Normally, she might brush off the question, but there is a hunger to the question, some kind of burning need, that she cannot ignore, and this is the one person who won't pity her for knowing the truth.

“I was a breach,” she says finally, fingers running along the edge of the desktop. “I had found a book that was--” she searches a moment-- “odd. An artifact, of course, but I didna know about them at the time. I was fascinated by it, but before I could buy it from the shop, I saw two men leaving with it in the strangest box I'd ever seen. Clear, and it had its own... energy.” She stops, sadness welling, but it is gentled before she can feel much of it. “I followed them all the way from Boston, to here, and slipped in after them. The door didna have codes, then, or motion sensors, or cameras.” She looks back up at Helena, whose expression is blank as she listens. “Did you know that the Umbilicus used to be a rope bridge?” She returns her gaze to her hands, which are playing with the hem of her shirt. “I waited until it had gone still, then crossed, and they werena in the office, so I managed to make it to the balcony.” Her eyes close as she remembers. “The feel of the place was such as I'd no experienced before, all tingly with potential and movement, though all sat still. And then they found me.”

“And locked you up in bronze?” There is a shade of outrage in Helena's tone when she eventually manages to respond.

“Aye.”

“That's...” Voice seeming to fail, the dark head of hair shakes violently. “Just because an artifact got the better of you? Because you were curious?”

Greer smiles. “And, I think, because I proved useful, once they had me convinced that there were worse things they could do to me than bronze me.”

Helena's eyes narrow at this. “You're acting differently.” At Greer's shrug, she continues, “You're _smiling_.”

“Why should I no smile?”

“You don't smile,” she says flatly, “even when you want to, and most people wouldn't after telling a story like that. And you're somehow the same woman who fired a weapon and stared me down during, after I'd asked you far less personal questions than these?” Her lips purse. “No, something's going on here.” Helena paces the room for a moment, then whirls. “It's Artie, isn't it? He's got some sort of fail-safe, for when you act up.”

“Artie hasna done a thing to me, except cook me breakfast and catch me up to speed on the Warehouse. And be my friend.” These last words are quieter, but the wistfulness that causes it is carried away on a wash of notes in her mind, and her lips curve at the gratitude left over.

“See there, you're doing it again.” Helena is studying her with eyes no less like a hawk's for their dark color. “There's an artifact behind this, it _has_  to be.”

Annoyance comes and goes in a flash, soothed. “Aye. And I've done it apurpose, so ye can rest easy.” Greer is amazed that Helena's eyes can narrow any further, but they do.

“Where is it?” she questions, her usually easygoing voice demanding. “And give me that canister.”

“Please dinna douse it,” Greer says as she pulls it from her shoulder, artificially calm. “It's been a great help to me over the years.” Her eyes flicker to the gramophone by her bed before she thinks to stop them, and Helena sees, crossing quickly to it.

Gloves have appeared on the agent's hands, and she touches the record player tentatively. “Is it this?” she asks, searching Greer's eyes for an answer. She bends to it, lifting the needle. “Or this?” She detaches the hand-labeled record, flipping it over in agile fingers.

“ _Please,_ ” Greer says again, the panic strong enough to resist the effects of the music for long enough to show in her speech. Face determined, Helena pops the lid from the canister and dumps the record in; Greer gasps as the effects on her are nullified, and her chest tightens with the panic that had been smoothed away a moment before. Tears spring to her eyes as all the strong feelings she'd banished return to her, nestling back into her awareness; Helena has taken away the contentment she so desperately needs.

Pulling the disc from the fluid, Helena inspects it. “Debussy. He experimented with tonal qualities. Something in this did a similar thing as that priest's artifact you gave me earlier. Why didn't you use that?” She looks up and sees the tears, setting the record down gingerly and stepping quickly to Greer's side.

Greer stumbles away from the desk and the woman nearing it, instinct keeping her back. “Why couldna ye leave it be?” Still trembling from the impact, she wipes the tears from her eyes and turns away, embarrassed.

The silence after is long, and when it is broken, Helena's voice is troubled. “I know the draw of using artifacts for your own gain, and what can come of it.”

Greer feels a touch of fingers on her shoulder blade; her heart squeezes with a moment of yearning, and she steps forward, away from the cause. “It only lasts a week or so, and besides a tendency to get the melody stuck in my head for months after, it doesna harm me.” Her voice is harsh with anger.

“It does something to your emotions, doesn't it? The title of it--”

“'A Moment in Heaven', aye.” Greer can't stop the bitterness in her tone. “The strongest of them are erased, and the positive ones enhanced.”

A pause follows from behind her. “You don't call that harm?” The voice is soft, but tinged with horror. “That you're not allowed to feel the full range of your soul?”

Greer turns in a rush of ire. “My 'full range' is one I canna live with!” Her eyes are fiery, and she can feel her nostrils flare. “No here, no in this place, in _this_  life.”

“So you're going to let them keep you here? You're not going to fight for a better one?” Helena demands, tone disbelieving. “You're just going to live in a fantasy world where you pretend you're happy?”

Greer bites off each word. “Do not judge me for trying to make my life tolerable.”

“A week, hmm?” Helena questions, voice rising, holding up the record. “And how long do they keep you bronzed, between crises? You can't tell me it's enough.”

" _It's never enough!”_ Greer roars; she is shaking all over now. Her voice is thready when she continues. “It never will be. But the last time I asked to leave, I was denied on the spot, no even a _review--_ ” Her throat is too tight to speak now, so she shakes her head slowly, more tears welling, so that she can barely make out the face of the woman before her. The fine tremble in her body has changed to a quake, and her knees buckle.

Helena is there, catching her, and she is maneuvered unsteadily to one of the armchairs, her legs giving way when she tries to let herself down so that she lands heavily. There are spots in her vision, and she tries to blink them away. “Greer,” Helena says, kneeling at her feet, and the soft way she pronounces the name goes straight to Greer's heart. Long, pale fingers press at the side of her throat. “Your pulse is incredibly fast.”

“I'll be fine, dinna fash.” She lifts a shaky hand to brush the fingers away, but Helena clasps it in her own, pressing hard to steady it.

“You're not fine,” Helena says gently, lifting the other hand to brush at a tear. “You'd know it if you could see yourself.” Greer freezes as much as she can at the contact, with the tremors still running through her. “This is why you were so rude with me the other day, isn't it? So you wouldn't have to talk about this?”

“Aye,” Greer manages, painfully aware of the hand still gripping hers. “I willna be pitied.”

Some thought crosses Helena's face, one corner of her mouth quirking. “So there _is_ some fight in you.”

“Nay, only pride,” Greer answers, looking away uncomfortably.

“That'll do, in a pinch,” she replies, and a hint of the playfulness is back in her voice. Helena is quiet a few long moments, then, more seriously, she says, “I'm not judging you, you know. It's just... very much not how I would handle it, if I stood in your shoes.”

This is enough to bring Greer's eyes back to her. “But you were bronzed, too. That wasna my shoes?”

Helena takes a moment to rise, giving Greer's hand a last squeeze before settling herself in the other chair. “No,” she says wryly. “I was an agent, then, but I had--” a moment passes before she resumes-- “made some unwise decisions. I used an artifact, and a fellow agent lost his life because of it.”

“So they bronzed ye for an accident? How is that different from me?”

“It wasn't the first time they'd caught me, for one, only the first time I'd hurt someone. And...” Helena's face is darkened by a passing thought. “I asked them to do it. I was... unstable. I knew it, and still I couldn't stop, so I let them do it, hoping I would be better for it.”

“And are ye?”

The smile that graces Helena's mouth is wistful. “Mostly. It took time, in and out of the Bronze Sector. Being an agent helps. A purpose, you know.”

A quiet follows, but it's more reflective than uncomfortable. Hesitating, Greer stammers a bit. “How-- how far out of time are ye?”

“'Out of time'.” Helena's smile is softer as she tries out the phrase. “I like that.” A second's pause, then,”I was born in 1866.”

Greer smiles to herself. “1895.” The room fades into silence again as they both retreat into their thoughts. In their own times, their own places, they would have likely never met; now, they are both here, two people from a similar era, but different things had brought them together. Greer wonders...

A rattling buzz interrupts them. Startled, it takes Greer a moment to realize it's her Farnsworth, and she hurries to pull it out of the pack at her waist. Flipping it open, she pushes the button, and Myka's face appears. “Hey, we're done.” Her eyes squint. “Where are you?”

“Something came up,” Greer says, flicking a glance at Helena, who is listening. “We've no yet finished.”

“As long as everything is okay,” Myka says. “What should we do now?” Steve's head pops into the circle, and he waves.

“Ah--” Greer is calmer now, the shaking subsided, but doesn't feel up for more work. “Just take the day. Ye've earned it.”

Steve lets out a whoop, and Myka grins, her face brightening; Greer hadn't noticed before, but she's really quite pretty. “Seeya later, boss!” The picture winks out.

Greer closes her own device, slipping it back into its pouch, and is overcome with a sense of awkwardness, the spell of silence broken. She clears her throat. “Well, now ye've learned all my secrets, I suppose ye can take the day, as well.”

Helena's eyes sparkle at her as she stands from the chair. “Clocking out before a scrap of real work is done? How decadent.” As Greer rises, she watches her carefully. “You'll be alright?”

“Aye.” _I'd have been better if you'd let it be,_ she thinks, but knowing what landed Helena in bronze has made that thought less irritated than it might have been. She has a little more respect for her, a little more admiration for her choice. _More than a little interest,_  she can't help but add, but brushes it away. Tracking the agent's steps to the door, she asks, “Ye're no going to take the record?” She picks it up from the nightstand.

Helena pauses in the doorway, hip leaned against the frame. She regards Greer with a tilted head, eyes evaluating. “Only if you ask me to.”

“Ye'd trust me with it?”

“Would you, in my place?” There's a lightness to the words that doesn't reflect in Helena's face.

Greer sighs, steps forward, and holds it out. “Guess not.”

“Good.” Helena takes it with a quirked mouth. She turns to go, then pauses, looking over her shoulder. “And Greer?”

“Aye?”

Her voice is quiet and conspiratorial, and something in it races to the base of Greer's spine as Helena walks away. “I doubt I've learnt the half of your secrets.” 


	5. Chapter 5

Greer goes out later that day to recoup some of the losses from her encounter with Helena, outwardly calmer, but no less turbulent inside; she reasons that her emotions are not necessarily _negative,_ simply confusing. Navigating her way to Freud 143X, she monitors the areas around her for ripples, finding fewer on this walk-through than the first after she'd been released a mere week before. They're doing well, but the static is still far higher than it should be, and she's been feeling some brief but intense waves from time to time that worry her.

She really had planned on taking the rest of the day, to filter through the overwhelming swirl of her returned emotions, but she had felt one of these pulses half an hour past, and she knows something must be done about it sooner rather than later. She had thought to call Artie, but he is composing, and she decides that her Farnsworth, tuned to his channel, will have to be enough.

As she rounds the last corner she'll have to make, her stride lengthens; something here is terribly amiss, more than the computers and her passing observances have indicated. Pete has talked about vibes, and she thinks she might be getting one; the air is beginning to buzz and oscillate, and a high pitch starts in her ear, making her dizzy. Staggering, she drops to her hands and knees rather than risk running into a shelf, the concrete bruising her kneecaps.

Digging in her kit, she pulls out the dowsing rod. Taking one side of the fork in her teeth and the other in one hand, Greer awkwardly crawl-hops along the aisle, determined, despite the lightheadedness, to find the source. The rod pulls her along, her teeth gritted around the hard wood as the pitch increases. One fumble at a time, she moves closer, knees screaming; she's near now, she knows, because the vibrations from the dowsing rod are making her jaw ache. The tremors from the wrongness are so violent now that her eyes, of their own accord, roll up into her head, and though she remains conscious, she can no longer see.

Gasping from the pain of the vibrations coming from all around, she reaches it-- whatever it is-- and extends a hand to grab it. She only has a moment to think, _No gloves,_ before she is drawn down into blackness.

\--- --- ---

Artie is sitting in his office letting the notes cascade through his mind when the computers beep. “What is this?” Rolling in his chair, he scoots to the monitor, muttering as he reads the display. “Freud 143X.. critical activation...” He pauses, sitting up straighter. “Freud--” His eyes flick to the standing board Greer has coopted for her operation, and the circled area on one of the maps. “Freud 143X. Oh, no, Greer, you--” He snatches up his bag and starts out the door, then turns back to grab his Farnsworth, popping it open as he walks. “Answer me,” he growls as he hunches out onto the balcony, but it continues to ring long after he's calibrated and strapped himself into the zipline.

In the B&B, Myka's Farnsworth buzzes, and she opens it with a groan. “Artie, she gave us the rest of the day _off--”_

“No time,” Artie interrupts, voice fluttery. “Get to the Warehouse. Bring everyone. Freud 143-- oh God--” His eyes clench shut in a wince.

“Artie, are you on the _zipline?”_ Myka is sitting straighter now, alarmed.

_"Now!_  And don't approach the area directly, use the coordinates--” A whimper escapes him.

“--from the zipline, got it,” Myka nods, clapping the lid shut and calling out, snatching up her coat.

The three of them-- Steve is in a different car, having gone to the next town over on some kind of errand-- pile into the SUV, questions flying that no one has the answers to. “What is happening?” “Is there a breach?” “Did he say what we're walking into?” “Should I have eaten one more cookie?'

The last is Pete, of course, and Myka, behind the wheel, driving far faster than normal, shoots him a brief quelling glance before looking back to the road.

“What?” he asks, hands lifted in an echo of the question. “They were really good cookies, and if I'm never gonna get to eat one again, I might as well be allowed a few regrets, Mykes.”

“Are you getting a vibe?”

“Nah,” Pete says, shrugging, casual even though the tires are slipping a bit on the dirt drive to the Warehouse. “Too far away for that.” He grins. “They were _just that good.”_

Helena is only vaguely aware of this interplay as she sits in the back. Her mind is turning over the knowledge that the record she had taken from Greer is housed nearby to the area Myka had mentioned; she'd passed a sign with “Freud” on it on her way to replace it. Had Greer gone back? Is she in danger?

This bothers Helena more than she cares to admit, more than mere concern for a fellow Warehouse compatriot might normally warrant. She remembers her first view of blue eyes nestled in a fine-boned yet somehow _strong_  face, laid bare to her by dark hair pulled back, luminous in the gentle light of the office: There had been a glimpse of something fascinating in that initial moment, before the mask came down, and everything she's learned after that has only stoked her curiosity.

The Warehouse comes into view, and before the car has fully stopped, the doors are open and they're dashing in, with no idea what they're about to face, and all Helena can think is, _Please let her be alright,_ because she has this _premonition_  that they were always supposed to meet, these two former statues who have spent so much time in close proximity, each unaware of the other--

The trip through the umbilicus, the glances at the maps and monitors, the breathlessness of the zipline are all a blur to Helena; Focus, she demands of her whirling brain, and slowly, it settles, and she begins to think.

She has done research into psychology, of course-- is there a subject she hasn't at least _skimmed_  in her time?-- but she finds her knowledge of Freud is small. Something about the ego and... a rabbit? _That can't be right._  But she's sure of it. As the zipline rapidly drives her to her destination, she knows this tiny snapshot isn't enough. If she were religious, about now would be the time she would pray.

“Good, you're here,” Artie says, eyes looking around her. “Pete, Steve, and Myka?”

“Two on foot, Steve's still driving,” Helena replies shortly, “now what's happened?”

“I _think--”_ Artie says, pushing his glasses up his nose, voice urgent-- “that Greer went to Freud 143X on her own, and has activated an artifact.”

“You think?”

He waves a hand defensively at Helena's critical tone. “There's something very wrong there, but I can't get close enough to see anything without serious interference, it gets worse the closer I move-- Did you bring earplugs?” Helena shakes her head and he grunts in disappointment. “The durational spectrometer shows her walking quickly in that direction from there--” He indicates an area to her left, checking the display-- “exactly one hour and thirty-two minutes ago.”

“So she's definitely in the thick of it,” Helena says, voice faint as her stomach hardens into a sour ball.

“Yes.” Artie's face is grim. “Now, you and I are going to comb the shelves for something that will combat the sound. My tuning forks won't last long enough for--” He waves a hand, flapping-- “whatever this is.”

As they search, Helena's mind is turning over; something he's said has triggered a thought. “Artie, _what exactly_  did the monitoring system say was the cause of the alert?”

“Critical activation.” Artie is looking at her suspiciously from down the aisle; he's had bad experiences with a few of Helena's brain waves. “Why?”

“Nothing about any interaction? No negative energy?”

“No, no other messages... Why? What are you thinking?”

Helena fiddles at the back of her workbelt, hand coming away with a small device, about the size of a cigarette case, bristling with wires, one side dominated by a speaker. “This is something I cooked up for.. other purposes, but it will do here. If there was some kind of interaction, I wouldn't dare use it, but...” She flips a switch, and the thing emits a faint buzz. “It records and loops sound, and I made it to be _precise._ If we find the proper pitch--”

“Yes!” Artie catches on, eyes darting in thought. “The tuning forks-- if we can loop the right note, it may counteract the noise enough for us to get closer!” He digs in his leather bag, pulling out a thick roll of leather, which when it is unfurled, reveals an entire set of them, one for each sharp, flat, and natural possible. He dashes each against the nearby podium until they find one that eases the whining buzz in their ears.

Quickly, Helena presses a button on the device, and the sound rings clear around them, endless; the painful tone blinks from her awareness, relieving a tension in her neck and shoulders she hadn't realized was there. Holding it up like a torch, she beckons Artie along, and they rush through the aisles, to Freud 143X.

Greer is there, lying limp on the floor, clutching something in one hand, the dowsing rod loose by her head. Her eyes are closed, her face peaceful. A few items have fallen off their shelves, and Helena quickly memorizes where they sit before she slips on gloves and moves to replace them; as much as she wants to run to Greer's side, Artie is already there, checking her over, and she does not want to be in the way. Or reveal anything.

It isn't that she wants to keep secrets, precisely, more that she hasn't found the proper words to describe what she thinks of-- feels for?-- Greer, and can't fathom how she could possibly explain it to anyone else. It's not simply attraction, though that's a part of it. _The woman has_  no _idea how distracting it is to work so closely with a person with a penchant for tight leather trousers,_  Helena mutters internally, though she knows Greer dons them for protective purposes. But there's something so much more about the situation, something deep she can't identify between the two of them, especially after their row in Greer's room.

Such a strange place, that room. It is filled with echoes of a past heyday mixed with more modern fragments, personal effects evidently amassed over the space of a century: paperbacks filed neatly alongside leather-bound tomes; a nineteenth century icebox with a twentieth century percolator on top; the fraying, handmade quilt resting over mass-manufactured sheets; Cobbler-crafted boots, probably older than Artie, homed incongruously next to a pair of flip-flops.

As Helena shelves the last errant item, she hears Artie let out a groan of horror. “What? What is it?” she questions, breaking from her musings and turning sharply to bring him into view. He is sitting on the concrete, legs splayed in front of him, and he holds a pipe, cradled carefully in a glove. He points, stricken, to a monitor, and she strides to it. The digital display reads:

_Tobacco pipe_   
_Sigmund Freud_   
_Properties: Lulls holder into a sleep, bringing subconscious desires out into vivid dreams._

She glances back at Greer's prone form-- she does appear to be sleeping-- then back to the words on the screen.

_WARNING: Subject will not return to wakefulness unless talked to; duration necessary unknown._

“She's been in silence for almost two hours,” Helena says weakly to Artie, who has a hand on Greer's shoulder, murmuring in her ear.

“I know,” he says, his voice thick; tears glimmer, unshed, in his eyes. “Help me get her to her room.”

They talk to Greer along the way in little snippets, harnessing any stray thoughts they can bring to the surface in a long string of non sequiturs. Artie calls Myka and the others to tell them what's going on. They aren't as shaken as Helena and Artie, but concerned. Artie sets them to inspecting the aisle for trouble, snapping his Farnsworth shut in frustration. “Why did you have to go alone?” he asks Greer, who is stretched between them on a gurney they'd co-opted from a disused laboratory after a quarter-mile of breathless heaving; she is slight, but surprisingly heavy. “You _know_  how dangerous the psychological artifacts are, I'm sure that's why you didn't take Agent Wells there this morning.”

Helena's eyes snap up. “That's why we were going to the outlying sectors? You didn't mention that,” she adds a smidge bitterly. “Though I didn't really give you time.” She and Artie are talking to each other, really, but in the spirit of the warning on the inventory entry, they had agreed to address Greer, no matter what they said.

“She didn't give you time, huh?” Artie's tone is edged, sensing something behind Helena's words. “You can tell me all about that when you wake up, I'm sure it's an _interesting_ story.” His bushy eyebrows rise at Helena over Greer's still form.

They've reached the metal door, and pass through it after Artie enters a code into the automated lock. “We'll bore him with the tale, I'm afraid,” Helena says, more casually than she feels. She searches around the room. “Shall I read you a book? You've quite a collection.” She crosses to the bookshelf while Artie lowers the gurney next to the single bed and rolls Greer gently onto it. There are several she herself would like to read again, but her gaze catches on _Treasure Island,_ just slightly askew. “I think I just may have found your favorite.”

“Yes, Helena will be here with you--” His eyes latch onto Helena's, saying, _Don't screw it up--_ “while I head back to my office. I'll stop by later.”

Artie walks out, and Helena takes the book to the bed, pulling over one of the armchairs, wondering what on earth the hefty thing is made of. “I suspect,” she pants, “he won't stay away for long, not as worried as he is.” She leans over to grip a limp hand in hers for a moment. “He can be such a mother bear.” Flipping the book's hardcover open, paging through to the beginning of the first chapter, she smiles, and begins to read. “Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end...”

She reads for nearly three hours, pausing occasionally to ask questions that will not be answered, her voice coarsening with the effort, until she feels something stiff behind the next page. “What's this, then?” Delicately, she nudges it out, careful not to lose her place. It's an old photograph: two people, a man and a woman, stare seriously out at her, the man's hand resting on the woman's shoulder in the typical pose of a married couple. “Are these your parents?” Even as she asks, Helena knows it to be true; she can see reflections of Greer in the set of the man's mouth, the pertness of the woman's nose. “They're very good-looking, I see where you get it.” She clears her throat; she has gotten in the habit of saying whatever is in her mind these last hours, apparently a bit _too_  much. “Do they live here, in this book? I suppose that means that it is your favorite. You're lucky, you know,” she says after a pause. “All the photographs of my parents still surviving in this world are--” her tone turns wry here-- _“historical treasures_ now, locked up in museums. Not that I couldn't steal them back,” she adds to the unconscious Greer, “but I've been warned off that sort of thing. Artie would find out, and he's made sure I know it.” She gives a delicate shiver of the shoulders. “Quite terrifying, that man, when he desires it.”

She is out of words, now, but there comes the merest moan from the bed; when Helena looks, she sees the smallest of twitches at the corner of Greer's mouth. Encouraged, Helena finds more to say, somehow.

“He has a fondness for you, you know. Have you seen him much, in your tenure here?” She laughs a little at the next idea that pops in her mind. “For all he regards me as ancient and dangerous, he still seems to think of you as a child.” A more disturbing thought follows, and it spills out. “But you're no more a child than I am, I think. I think whatever age difference there is between us, physically and chronologically, is rather nullified by the bronze and the knowledge one tends to glean from working in this place, don't you?” She wants to swallow down the next words, but they flow free, though her throat is tight. “It doesn't matter in any case, does it? We're still drawn, aren't we? Don't try and tell me it's not true, I'm not a brilliant inventor and researcher for my lack of observation.” Her hand seems to move on its own, reaching out to smooth a wave of brown that has come loose from the ribbon in Greer's hair. “There's simply _something--”_

“How are you, Greer?”

Not Artie-- Myka's head is peeking around the frame of the door, her eyes flicking about the room before settling on the bed and Helena in the chair beside it. Her words tell Helena that Artie has briefed her on the situation. Snatching back her hand and choking back the next thought, Helena wonders if her cheeks are burning as obviously to Myka as they are to her. “We're just having a bit of a chat,” she says, falsely nonchalant, tucking the photograph into a pocket facing away from the door; something tells her Greer wouldn't appreciate a wider audience for it. “About _Treasure Island.”_  She holds up the book in illustration.

“You have good taste, Greer,” Myka says, her voice impressed, but her eyes are searching Helena's, quizzical, skeptical. “It's a classic, these days.”

_So she does know,_ Helena thinks. All conversations about Greer at the B &B are speculative, of course; Pete and Steve are still unsure, Claudia and Artie not being forthcoming on the subject, but Myka's quick mind has clearly deduced the truth. “Indeed,” Helena says noncommittally, rising from the chair and handing the book to Myka, pointing to the spot to resume.

“Well, I'm here so that Helena can get some dinner, but I'm _sure_  she'll be back later.” There is a barb in Myka's tone that is not for Greer, and Helena wonders how much she has overheard.

Mentally castigating herself for leaving the door so far open, she replies, “Indeed I will,” with more composure than she feels. There has been a subtle, open line between herself and Myka for nearly as long as they've known each other. It has never been explored-- there was never time, between all the dramas and interventions and misunderstandings and well, really rather a _lot_  of mistakes on Helena's part-- but searching herself for it as she leaves the room, calling a farewell over her shoulder, she finds that, at least on her end, it is no longer there. Their window of opportunity has slammed shut, and Helena wonders if that became true before or after she had emerged from the Umbilicus, to a petite yet fierce Scotswoman whose bright eyes, despite the feigned boredom, had only once left hers in the space of that brief meeting.


	6. Chapter 6

Artie, sensing Helena's reluctance to leave, has cooked dinner for the two of them so that she can remain in the Warehouse. It's simple, only grilled cheese sandwiches and canned peas, but as Helena has developed a soft spot for the melted squares, it's reassuring in a way she hadn't expected. She's never been one much for comfort food, but it does her a bit of good now.

They have been mostly quiet as they eat, sitting with their plates on their laps in the office, but once her food is gone, Artie clears his throat. "I think you need to tell me what happened earlier today between you and Greer,” he says, rubbing his hand over the back of his head.

“I don't see why,” she replies, a bit tersely, setting her plate on the nearest surface.

“Then let me enlighten you,” Artie snaps, leaning forward in his chair, face narrowed into the rare but intimidating expression he reserves for major transgressions. “Greer has worked _extensively_ in this Warehouse. She has learned, and learned _well,_ the necessary caution needed to do what she does so competently.” His eyes pierce her for a moment, and Helena knows he is referencing some of her own, more cavalier actions in the past. “Her personnel record is nearly _spotless,_ she is so careful, and yet--” he jabs a finger at her here, emphasizing the next words-- “after a morning with you, she decides to tackle what she has _clearly_ marked as one of the most dangerous areas. _By herself.”_

Helena's temper is sparked at his tone; she leans into the onslaught, expression fierce. “What, are you accusing me of telling her to go there? Because I did not!”

“You've done worse, but no,” Artie growls, long, drawn out versions of the words. “But I do think something that went on between you two prompted her to make a very _stupid_ decision in a long line of incredibly intelligent ones.”

Helena stops herself from sitting back, from moving, from showing any sign that he might be even close to correct. She doubts that Artie knows about the Debussy recording, and is reluctant to explain the moments leading up to its discovery, because to do that, she has to put words to feelings she can barely pin down, somehow explain the immeasurable disquiet in her being. _Keep it simple,_ she commands.

“We had a... confrontation this Friday past,” she says, putting a _this-is-useless-and-irrelevant_  tone in her speech. Hands rising in concession, she continues, “I'll admit, I pried a bit about her past. She didn't react well, and I was upset with her this morning because of it, and though we had another brief argument, we worked it out.”

“And that's all?” Artie drawls, a menace in his voice.

“That's all,” Helena lies, leaning casually back in the chair, heart pounding.

Artie watches her for a moment, then slumps in his seat, seeming to take her at face value. “I'm sorry. She's--” he lifts his hands in some beseeching gesture-- “important to the Warehouse.”

Though her pulse is still racing from the lie, Helena still catches the note that belies his words.”To the Warehouse, or to you?”

Artie lets out a sour breath of a laugh. “Are you kidding? I _am_ the Warehouse.”

“Thought so,” she says knowingly, a bit smug. He rolls his eyes at her, but the tension has lessened. _What if it is my fault?_ her anxious brain prompts. _Maybe I should have simply let the record be, like she asked..._  “Artie?” Helena says after a few moments in her harried thoughts, unable to completely stop the tremble in her voice. “What if she doesn't wake up?”

He eyes her with a suspicious curiosity for a second, then sighs. “Then she will become one of many who have suffered the kind of end this place offers.”

“An end she shouldn't be suffering.” _She should have lived and died long ago. Found a partner, had children, a vocation. Anything other than this._

Artie's eyebrows shoot up. “She told you? How she came to be here?”

“We've spoken of it.”

“I'll be.” He loosens with a kind of relief. “Maybe she'll find a way out after all.” His eyes are shifty, his voice halting when he speaks next. “She won't-- she doesn't listen to me, when I encourage her to talk to the Regents. Could you--” His eyes plead with her for a moment, until he looks away uncomfortably. “Maybe coming from you, it'll reach her.”

“Perhaps.” _If I get the chance._

They wait for hours, but when Myka returns from the room, having left Steve there with Greer, she reports no change. They sketch out a schedule of shifts, for talking to her, so that she is never left alone. It will leave them all with too little sleep, but the subject is never brought up; each of them having been under an artifact's influence, there is no hesitation in the decision. They will do what needs to be done to save their fellow Warehouse agent, whether she is an actual agent or not.

Helena staunchly refuses to leave, despite Artie's cajoling, so eventually he offers her his hammock, if she will help him haul it out. She places it near to the desk and settles in, eyes on the Farnsworth ever perched on its stand, wondering if she will be able to sleep.

\--- --- ---

In the morning, Pete switches out for Artie; Artie switches out for Myka in the early afternoon, and there is still no change. Helena is going insane with inactivity, but will not leave the office until it is time for her to take her turn; she has co-opted a corner of it, using Claudia's spare laptop for research. A plate of croissants and eggs sit untouched on the desk; she is too busy throwing ideas at Artie when they come.

“Is there an artifact that stimulates the conscious mind?” she asks, typing a search into the computer. “If we can bring her mind back into activity--”

“How many times do I have to tell you that it is a _supremely_ bad idea to mix the effects of two psychological artifacts?” Artie grumbles at her irascibly. “We have _no_ idea what types of things are going on in her mind, or how jarring it would be to have them interrupted.”

They have gone through this conversation a dozen times by the time Claudia appears-- literally. “Can I have a word, old man?” She grins as they both jump.

_“Yes,”_ Artie says, the word growling out accompanied by a scowl, “if I survive the heart attack you just gave me.” He gestures for them to go out on the balcony; after a few moments, Helena pretends to need something from the file cabinet so she can hear better.

“--know that she doesn't get paid?” Claudia's voice is incredulous.

“Yes, I know, and believe me--”

“That's insane, Artie. Insane! She's a _slave!”_

_“I know that.”_ He lets out a frustrated breath.

“You know, I've learned a lot about the Warehouse since Mrs. F left it to me, and sure, there were a few times where I was all 'Man, we gotta update this for the actual century we're living in', but this is a real HYDRA moment.”

Helena puzzles over that; what does a beast with many heads have to do with Greer's lack of pay? Though she rather feels like a raging monster at the conversation. She'd known that the Scot never left, that she'd been kept captive for far longer than was necessary-- which is already bad enough-- but learning she'd never even earned a basic wage sets Helena's chest on fire. The Warehouse has stolen Greer's life, without even attempting recompense.

“If I ran payroll, I would have fixed it a long time ago,” Artie says after a pause, voice filled with suppressed anger. “But I don't.”

“I'm going to say something--”

Claudia is on the move, and Helena hurries back to the desk, the old suffragette in her soul bristling. Artie returns, Claudia leaves, and she returns to her research with renewed vigor, so much that Helena is wondering if he might be on the verge of throttling her. Artie seems relieved when his Farnsworth buzzes. He opens it, and Myka's voice rings out from the Farnsworth. “She's waking up.”

Helena jolts from her chair, leaving it twirling in her wake, down the steps and in the aisles before she can even think. She has never run so fast in her life, and the idiocy of it is she can't even name why she's darting through the shelves so quickly, only that she _must._ She'd told Greer that they were drawn, but that's as close as she can manage to get to the feeling underneath as artifacts fly past in a blur. She has to see, has to be sure that the flame of personality she'd glimpsed the previous Tuesday is still there, to be _certain_ that she still has a sense of humor, that keen intelligence, that intriguing, tortured soul. Helena has to be sure she is alright, so she can get her the hell out of the Warehouse that has wronged her.

She nearly skids into the little room, managing to slow herself only with help of the other insanely heavy armchair near the door. She lets it go as soon as she can, walking quickly to the side of the bed that holds the slim, but stirring body. “Greer,” she says breathlessly, putting her fingers to the pulse in her throat. “Greer, can you hear me? Can you speak?”

“Hl-- Helena.” The word rasps from a dry mouth, but is there.

“Yes,” she says, relieved beyond measure. “Do you remember anything? Are you feeling alright?”

“I had--” Greer coughs, a weak hand only making it halfway to her mouth to cover it-- “such dreams.” Her eyes open at last, blinking sleepily. “Ye were there, yer voice. Ye were talking to me-- reading?” She sits up suddenly, cringing at the movement. _“Treasure Island._  Where is it?”

Knowing what she's after, Helena discreetly pulls the picture from her pocket, just enough so Greer can spot it. “It's on the shelf, no one has it,” she says, eyes flicking down in the direction of the photograph; Myka is still there, she realizes, in a corner, watching.

Greer sighs in relief, slumping back onto the bed. “Thank you,” she murmurs, so softly Helena barely hears her. Her eyes are glimmering with a sudden wetness.

“Actually, I think you have it,” Myka says, pushing from the wall. “I'll be at home.”

Helena closes her eyes in a subtle wince, but forces it away; she can deal with that later. After she's sure Myka is gone, she puts the photo in Greer's hands. “I thought perhaps you might want to keep it to yourself.”

“Aye.” Greer groans as she shifts, clearing her throat. “Aye, ye thought right.” A hand goes to her head, probing. “I've the damnedest headache. What did I touch?”

“A pipe belonging to Freud. Do you know it?”

Greer shakes her head, brow creasing in regret for the action. “No.”

“It shows your subconscious to you in dream form, apparently, but if you're left in silence too long, you will never wake.”

Suddenly looking embarrassed, Greer cradles her aching crown. “That explains a bit. Ye were all there, talking to me.” Helena nods. After a moment of blinking, Greer says, hesitantly, “After the reading, ye were talking about the photograph.”

“I was.” An alarm is ringing in Helena's brain. “I found it in the book.”

“It wasna... the only thing ye said,” Greer says, sounding sure, but unsettled.

“I--” Helena's throat tightens, remembering. “No.”

“What--” Greer seems to be readying herself; her mouth sets into a firm line, and blue eyes connect with brown-- “what would ye have said next, if she hadna come in?” Helena lets out a sighing breath and breaks the eye contact, the only sign of her discomfort, but can't find an answer that won't crack the dam she's so carefully built, that has to remain in place until she can identify her thoughts. _There's just something..._ She feels a light touch on her hand after a few moments of the resulting silence. “It's alright, never ye mind. I shouldna pry.”

_Impossible to pry when you're the subject,_  Helena thinks, but the words are stuck inside her throat. “I'm just glad you're alright,” she says instead. “You gave us a scare.”

“And I'm sorry for it,” Greer says ruefully, rubbing her forehead, “in more ways than the one. I'm thinking now it wasna the best choice to go there.”

“And you'd be right,” Artie huffs, leaning on the doorway, chest rising and falling like a bellows. He crosses to the bed, kneeling opposite Helena, on Greer's other side. “What possessed you to do something so reckless?”

There is the slightest pause before she answers. “It was worsening, I could feel it. Ye know how these things can become systemic.”

“Then you shouldn't have sent everyone home,” Artie scolds, voice gruff even as it's out of breath. “It was a bad move.”

“Aye.” Greer leans back against the wall, shifting herself into a sitting position. “And if ye didna care a whit what became of me, ye wouldna be chiding me just the now. Ye'd wait till later, when I was feeling more recovered.” She smiles, a tiny curve of an edge of a lip. “Thank ye, by the way, both of ye, for my life.”

Artie is standing from the bed, clearing his throat in a series of awkward rumbles. “Yes-- ah-- well-- all in a day's work at Warehouse 13.” He fidgets with his fingers a moment, then fixes her with a stern look. “Never again.”

“No, sir,” Greer smiles at him, and he leaves, the rumbles echoing behind him.

“He truly cares about you,” Helena observes, her own hands uncomfortably idle in her lap.

“Aye, and he shows it best when he grouches,” Greer replies, a twist of the smile still on her lips. “He thinks I dinna see it, but I do.” She moves her mouth about, grimacing. “Can I trouble ye for a dram? In the cupboard there, above the percolator.”

Obliging her, Helena rises and opens the indicated door. After a look at the contents, she comments dryly, “Water wouldn't be better?”

Greer waves that away with a shaky hand. “Later. For the now, whisky will do.”

Selecting gin for herself, Helena pours them both a drink, pinching the glasses in the fingers of one hand to carry them back. Greer takes the darker one, then lifts it, saying something that sounds to Helena's ears like “Slayngee”, followed by a consonant she's not entirely sure of, though it ends in “ah”.

“Whatever it is you said,” Helena murmurs, lifting her glass, and a brow in inquiry.

“Ye dinna have the Gaelic, then,” Greer says, sounding disappointed. “Ah, well, it only means 'good health', it's no a swear. Though I've met some as thought so.”

“Do you speak much Gaelic?” Helena asks, curious; she hasn't heard it spoken since before she went in the bronze.

“Nay, only the blessings and curses.” She suddenly grins, like a mischievous child. “I could teach ye the worst ones.”

Helena is struck nearly breathless by the simplicity in that smile. _I trust you,_ it says. Greer doesn't smile like that for just anyone, she realizes. How she can know this, she isn't able to say, but it feels true, sliding neatly into her tentative understanding of the woman before her. _Perhaps you shouldn't,_ she replies silently; some of her decisions have been less than wise. “I may have to take you up on that,” she says, hiding her dazed thoughts behind a sip of the gin.

“They're dead useful,” Greer continues, another swallow of the whisky sliding down her throat. “No one can understand them, yet they're undeniably  _filthy_ to the ear.”

Helena has to force herself not to choke on the gin; her eyes water from the effort, and she pretends she needs a refill so she can turn her back. There had been something... _suggestive_ in Greer's voice, she would swear to it, but thinking back to the discomfort of the morning, it's hard to imagine that--

“Ye're alright?” Greer questions; Helena can feel the pale eyes on her.

“Of course,” she says, turning, holding up her drink for explanation, air coming short to her hopeful lungs.

“Dinna drink too much, ye'll have to find yer way back home eventually.” Yes, there is something in Greer's manner that has changed, in the matter of a few hours-- or she's a lightweight, Helena considers as she watches the brunette drain the tumbler of whisky.

“You're sure you'll be alright on your own?” Helena says it before she can stop herself, leftovers from her candor earlier. _Fool._ She knows why she's said it-- she doesn't want to leave the little room, or its occupant-- even as she knows it's ludicrous to expect an invitation to stay.

Greer's light eyes study her a moment, something keen flashing in them. “I didna say ye had to leave, ye ken. No just the now, anyway.” She wiggles her empty glass at the still-standing Helena, a request in her smile. “I want to hear about yer _reputation.”_

Helena does choke now; coughing, she takes the glass and refills it quickly. The word, so stiff in her own version of English, is let out in a rolling amalgam of extra syllables-- one that's inflammatory to her in a highly inappropriate way. “My _what?”_ she manages, handing the tumbler back and sitting down hard in the chair.

“Ye know,” Greer says, her eyes dancing. “The one that didna precede ye.”

“Oh.” Relief spreads through Helena's tense muscles. “That one.”

Before she can continue, Greer interjects, a smile in her voice, “There's another? Do tell.”

Helena feels her cheeks flame. “That particular area is not up for discussion.” _What on earth are you doing?_ She can't say, exactly, but she's wondering if Greer is actually _flirting_ with her, and it leaves her impossibly flustered inside. “The one I was referencing is the one that the entire world knows, or at least has read, thinking it's fiction. Save you, apparently.”

“I'm listening.” Greer does a strange movement, like a settling wiggle.

“Well,” she continues, feeling inexplicably nervous, “I'm an accomplished researcher. I provided nearly everything my brother needed to write his science fiction books, which we published with his face, and my name. Nearly every invention in them is something I've built.” She twists her mouth wryly. “A few were failures, but printed well anyway.” She explains the basic premise of a few of her more well-received novels, and outlines her favorite inventions.

“Aye? An author, yer brother, and a woman the brains behind.” Greer raises her glass, a private-seeming smile on her face. “And damn society's expectations of gender.” She takes a sip, then sets the glass down on the small bedside table. “I'm impressed. Ye've a working knowledge of the sciences, then?”

“Well, I _did,”_ Helena admits. “I've had some trouble bringing it up to speed.”

Greer nods, face sober, her accent intensifying-- the liquor, perhaps. “I've kent the same problem. Didna hardly read a thing for a time, an' the new advances starting to pop up in the library. I've still no quite grasped the work a' that Einstein and his contemporaries.”

There it is again, that flutter at _contemporaries_ \-- which sounds to Helena more like “ken-tehm-puir-eer-ees”-- but it is eclipsed by surprise, followed by a sharpening interest. “You're a scientist?”

“Nay. I didna have a chance to ever put my knowledge into _practice,_ ye see...” Greer waves an expansive hand at their surroundings.

“Because you're here,” Helena finishes, a part of her squeezing at the thought. “Doesn't that bother you?”

“Aye.” Greer has taken the whisky off the night stand again, and is sipping it with a serious look. “Aye, it does bother me. But I'm here, and I've no got the power to change it.”

“But you could--”

“Please dinna start that.” All the playfulness, the openness has disappeared from the Scotswoman's aspect; her face is a mask of blankness edged with a glimmer of fear. “I'm no ready for it.”

Helena remembers the conversation she'd overheard, the word slave bursting from Claudia's outraged lips. “But---”

_“Please.”_  It's the same tone of alarm Helena had heard from her as she had gone to dip the record in Neutralizer, and she's learned a thing or two about Greer since then; she now knows better than to push.

“Alright. I'm sorry.” She rises from the chair, pouring the rest of her gin down the tiny free-standing sink next to the icebox; she's feeling wobbly enough without it, a feeling of coming close to something dangerous or dreadful pervasive in her body. “I'll leave you now. I think you'll benefit from some rest.” She hesitates, then pulls a tall glass from the cabinet and opens the tap, filling it with water. Setting it gently on the little table next to Greer's bed, she inclines her head in farewell. “Good night.”

“G'night,” reverberates behind her as she leaves, and she thinks she hears a tinge of regret in it.

\--- --- ---

Greer sips the remaining whisky slowly, the moment where Helena had set that water at her bedside replaying in her mind. Such a small gesture, that, but it speaks of a deeper concern. As does the picture, held safe on Helena's person, as do the hours she'd spoken and read to an unresponsive body, as does the moment Greer had awakened, with gentle, worried brown eyes watching her, a normally full mouth pressed thin in distress, and that brief glimpse of intense deliverance she had seen pass over the broad, striking features.

The dreams had been mostly visual, and the first Greer remembers of them are silent, but no less vivid for it. She had been striding across an open field, the sun so _warm_ on her that she can almost still feel it, and the world had been ready around her, ready for her to enter it and be welcome. She had come to a house, a neat two-story with carefully strung laundry on ropes in the front, and she had stepped through a maze of sheets to her parents, waiting, smiling, beckoning.

She had always wanted to live outside of a city, in the peace of it, yet with one nearby; when she had looked to the horizon, a well-traveled road had appeared, leading her, so she had gone. She had mounted a horse, a fine, strong beast with a long wind and longer legs, and they had raced down the road, the miles flying, and were in the city. It had been Boston, with its haphazard cobblestones and gravel-strewn dirt, its filthy people and the horrid pillories at every major juncture, the smoke belching from factories, horse apples littering their way, but it had been home.

As she had dismounted, there had been her father, suddenly in town with her, waving a letter. It had been an invitation to a professorship, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and she was invited to be an assistant to him. The joy of it, that she could work alongside him, practice the concepts he had taught her, had overwhelmed her. Little wisps of sound had come through then, voices, but she hadn't been able to understand them.

And then Helena Wells had appeared. There had been a light in the brown eyes, a quality that had no name, and then she had vanished, replaced by Artie. “Why did you have to go alone?” he had asked, and Greer had looked around, confused; she wasn't alone, her father was with her. “You know how dangerous the psychological artifacts are, I'm sure that's why you didn't take Agent Wells there this morning.”

The images around her had wavered, a little, because she had remembered: The present day was no longer in the 1900s, like she was seeing around her. It was 2017, and she was in the Warehouse, and still yet somehow her father had been standing before her, smiling. Though she had then known she was in some sort of vision, and though the colors had faded a little, she had remained inside of them. Helena had come back, speaking to her, reading _Treasure Island--_ but the things she saw with Helena did not always match the words filtering into her mind, and she felt her face burn at the recollection, though she was the only one who would ever know what had happened.

So many other things had appeared to her, through the hours that followed. The Regents, faces all blurs except the one she had met once, fifty years before, the one who had dashed her hopes, but smiling now, arms stretched to welcome her outside. The simple beauty of a cat curled up on a windowsill, content, with a belly full of mice. A wall of books. A professor, teaching her about physics. And most of all.. freedom. The freedom to go where she would, to study what she might, to meet people who weren't linked with the Warehouse. And yet.. the Warehouse had never been far from her, the towering metal building always on the horizon.

She stirs from her remembrance, finding her eyes wet. Lifting her shirt to dab them away, she sniffs back the running of her nose and swings her legs off the bed, the photograph cradled in her fingers. She can't help smiling a little through the tears, remembering Helena's voice in her dreams. “Not that I couldn't steal them _back,”_ she had said of her own parents' photographs. There had been an annoyance in her tone, a miffed aspect, and it reminds Greer of Artie's grumping.

She has been trying to ignore it, much as she avoids all the other hard things in her closed-in life, but replacing the picture in her favorite book-- that Helena had realized it so quickly has touched her heart in a way she has no words to describe-- she knows that she cannot deny anymore that she wants _out._ The fear that starts in her spine and echoes through her limbs is strong, but she fights to think through it. Though the Warehouse had always been lurking in her dreams, she had spent the whole of them outside of it, in the world, exploring the possibilities of a life that had been cut short, changed into a different, more restrictive one that had gone on too long.

Of course, she has fears. The world outside terrifies her; she has seen pictures of technological advances, the way cities look now, so vast and towering and acutely unfamiliar. Her idea of things, horses and carriages and the coal-run locomotives and dirt tracks, is gone. Will she be able to find her way, or will it swallow her up? And what will she _do_ in it? She has a hundred-year gap in her experience, even as her mind is older than almost anyone alive, and certainly everyone normal. How will she relate to the people near her body's age, as everyone will expect her to do, when she has already lived more than a life's span trapped in her thoughts?

Her soul feels ancient as she ponders these possibilities. If the bronze had allowed her to scream, she would have burnt out her throat with the force of it in those early days, before she had mastered the anger at the injustice done to her-- a rage that is returning, particle by particle, gathering in her, building like a late spring storm.

No, she cannot ignore it anymore if she's going to learn how to live with it, and if she's going to acknowledge that, she has to let the other feelings through, too: The fierce yearning for a life where she is allowed to-- how had Helena put it?-- feel the full range of her soul; the want of a life that goes as others do, year after year; a body that puts on wrinkles and strands of grey to mark its wisdom. Greer wants it all so badly she has to consciously loosen the muscles in her jaw.

And she has to admit that she wants love. Her parents had had it, a strong enough love to steer them through the loss of their home to the New World, to bring them and their twelve-year-old daughter to an unfamiliar place and flourish in it. As hard as things had been when she was young, Greer had never doubted that they would conquer it: her parents had cherished her, and each other, too much to fail. Recalling how safe they had made her feel, Greer thinks, _A little of that security wouldna go amiss just the now._ She isn't totally inexperienced in that realm. Her parents hadn't been the only people she had left behind her when she'd left Boston; she'd had a lover, Bridget-- not her first, either-- a quiet, serene Irish girl with the least tamable hair Greer had ever seen. They'd sneaked about together, more because of the difference in nationality than anything else. Few people, even in that day, thought much of two women strolling down the street arm in arm, or spending long evenings together.

But there is the issue of who could love her _now,_ with an inner being that spans nearly a century and a half, and a body that does not match. Helena springs into her mind; in her similar situation, of _course_ she does. She is beautiful, certainly, but that is not the only thing that brings her image up. She is a woman of science, with a soul of passion-- Greer has seen it, sparking behind those chocolate eyes-- a sharp, sometimes biting wit, and a keener intelligence. And she's daring enough to plunge herself into a new domain, so enormously different from the one that had formed her.

_And she cares for you._ The thought is instant, clear and _true._ She knows it, has known since hearing Helena speak over her dreams, the thoughts she had revealed, the way she had called Greer's name on her waking. She doesn't understand  _how_ it is true, after they've known each other only a week, and she certainly can't fathom why, but her knowledge of this has been reverberating through her since regaining consciousness.

She is still amazed at her own nerve, teasing Helena after Artie had left, but even as a part of her had urged caution, knowing that it would not be poorly received had made it hard to resist. And she can't help the trust blossoming in her, not after her new understanding. But then Helena had pushed her, and her ease with it had ended in a flash of dread, and now she is left with a glass of water that is so much more, and these thoughts.

Her computer terminal, still raised from its recess in the desk, blinks the time at her-- 6:04 PM-- and she sighs. One side effect of the bloody pipe is that she isn't sleepy in the least. _It's going to be a long night._ She pours one more finger of whisky, then, after a brief hesitation, slides a book from under her pillow that she had taken from the library after that first day with Myka, though she hasn't touched it since. She sits in the armchair still settled at the side of her bed; opening it, she runs her fingers over the first words pensively, then begins to read. Greer can't banish the expressive, cultured voice in her mind that begins, “The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow...”

\--- --- ---

Helena accepts a ride from Artie back to the bed and breakfast, her stomach clenched, though not because of his driving; the careening barely filters through her consciousness as they sail through the cooling night air. Her mind is on the little anachronistic room deep within the folds of the Warehouse.

It contains the marks of a fragmented life, an existence lived in bits and pieces, broken by years of soundless, motionless captivity, the indelible scars of it etched on the soul within. Helena has seen snatches of who Greer might have been without the imprisonment, and she can't dispel the effect of them on herself. It's a melancholy happiness: Gladness, that there is still enough spirit in Greer to show; anguish that it has to fight its way to the surface.

She knows very well what it's like to be unable to move, or hear, or see, trapped within the confines of one's own mind, incapable of tears or smiles or gestures. Once she had gone in, it didn't matter that she had requested it; it was torture. No matter how loudly she had screamed or whispered in her thoughts, her inner voice had always been the same volume, and she had never quite managed to be at any kind of peace with the relentless silence. Regardless of where her life led her now, of what choices she would make in the future, Helena would take her own life before allowing herself to be put back, and she wonders how Greer has managed not to fight it. She had thought, before, that Greer's acceptance of her fate was weakness, but ruminating on it now, she realizes that the Scot possesses a strength she will never be able to fully comprehend.

Her wonder at this person who has so quickly infiltrated her being continues to grow, and as she absently bids Artie good night, she wonders what on earth she's going to do if Greer is bronzed again. The feeling that she was _meant_ to know Greer has swelled ever stronger, especially after the fright of nearly losing her. Helena knows herself well-- how could she not, being her own only company for over a hundred years?-- and is aware that she will do many a reckless, foolish, stupid thing before she will let the bronze cover Greer again. 


	7. Chapter 7

The next day, Greer is greeted, to her surprise, with warmth by all the agents-- except for Helena, who merely smiles uncertainly at her from a corner. They _had_  left things on shaky ground, but to see that the Englishwoman is still worried about it snugs a piece of her feelings more firmly into place.

“Man, when Mykes told me you got whammied, I was all, 'Not Greer!'” Pete slaps a hand to his chest in pretend shock. “Glad you're okay.”

“Me, too,” Steve says, smiling at her. Myka smiles as well, but doesn't say anything, and there is a tension in her today. In fact, as the next week goes on, with a fluctuating round of agents aiding Greer, she notices that Myka only speaks to her when she needs to, and even then is aloof, though always polite.

Things with Helena have changed, as well, though not in the same way. The space amidst them seems crowded with possible words, with truths unspoken, feeling full and unrealized as the air before a rain. While it is unsettling, it's not entirely unpleasant; she doesn't feel excluded, like when she is with Myka. There is something expectant in the space between them.

Working on an inspection with Helena on one of the later days-- Pete and Myka are off chasing an artifact, and Artie has made sure she isn't left alone in the stacks anymore-- Greer brings herself to ask about Myka; there is a strange, tentative intimacy between them lately that makes it easier. “Agent Bering is acting a bit odd lately, dinna ye think?”

“Yes,” Helena says, tone dry, though it's obvious-- she hopes-- the bite in it has nothing to do with Greer.

When it's clear that she doesn't plan on elaborating, Greer prompts, “Normally she's a bit more friendly.”

“She does have a tendency toward the familiar.”

Rolling her eyes, Greer turns from the artifact she's been evaluating. “Care to share why that's changed?”

Helena feels the force of those blue eyes, knows it's unwise to say anything more, but she has lost a lot of her reticence-- not entirely of her own will. “She's jealous.”

“Oh, aye?” It's an angle Greer hasn't considered, but as she reviews the last few days, she realizes that the easy dynamic between the two women _has_ changed; Myka has been treating Helena much the same as she's been treating Greer. “So the two of ye...” She lets the thought dangle.

“No,” Helena says, in an odd voice: part annoyed, part hedging, part regretful.

“I see.” She doesn't, but discomfort is clear on Helena's face; she has a feeling it's not only due to the obvious, and is reluctant to pry. For all her playfulness, Helena is not exactly an open book.

They are both wordless for some time, returning to their inventory and monitor reading. After half an hour, Helena says, slowly, “I think it was assumed by the both of us that we would, eventually.”

“Aye?” Greer only says this to buy time; from the sound of it, this is a delicate area, and something warns her that this could lead somewhere she's not ready for. As silence follows, she clears her throat gently, thinking over possible responses, finally landing on, “But it's no happened.”

“No.” There is a finality in this that Helena almost regrets, but with Greer just behind her...

“Does she know why it's not going to?” Greer's voice is nonchalant as she says this, but the unsaid answer is hanging in the air, obvious to them both: _Because we're going to._ Helena had been right; they _are_ drawn. It has been crackling in the air in the quiet moments since the pipe, the times when the Warehouse stands empty around them, in the pauses amidst words. It's there now, a wire strung between their bodies, and Greer can feel, though her back is turned, that Helena has gone utterly still.

This is the closest either of them has got to naming the pull they feel, and Helena can hardly breathe for the tension of it. She is frozen, hands gripping the shelf under them, afraid to move, afraid what will-- or won't-- happen. She closes her eyes, willing back the fine tremble that is threatening to seep throughout her body, because if it starts, Greer will know it's there; she has learned that the Scot's abilities lie in sensing changes in atmospheric particles, currents of movement most remain oblivious to. She will _know--_

“Helena.” It's the barest whisper, but it stirs the air like a hammer blow, and the wall keeping her from shaking falls in an instant. Helena rotates on wobbling legs, slowly lifting her eyes to the intent face across the aisle, rising from booted feet, up slim, muscled thighs revealed by snug leather, traveling over the trim stomach couched in loose linen, and the small, high breasts stretching it tight.

Greer knows her face is full of heat and hesitation as she watches; her heart is beating at the inside of her chest, and she has lost all her breath. She feels every touch of Helena's gaze, and every place it lingers seems set afire. The air about the dark-haired, dark-eyed agent is shimmering with potential movement, harnessed only by the minuscule sliver of willpower left between them.

She swallows, hard, and it is enough to break the tether; Helena is pressed against her in the space of two steps, leaning her back against the pillar between shelves. Greer can feel the delicate flutter of air against her cheek as Helena leans in, the quiver of muscles as fingers trace ever so gently down her cheek. “We shouldn't-- do this,” Helena breathes in her ear, the gasping sound of it enough to make Greer's knees buckle.

“Nay.” Greer turns her face so that her nose nestles against an abnormally flushed cheek; her eyes flutter closed at the softness of it. Somehow, she finds enough air to sigh, “But I'm not sure we have a choice.” She doesn't feel as if she can move; though she's sure she's strong enough to push Helena back, the force with which she doesn't want to keeps her still.

 _So unwise,_ Helena's brain admonishes, but the closeness is intoxicating, and she pushes the thought away, her hand reaching up to cup a fine-boned cheek. Gently, slowly, she pulls, turning Greer's head and her own. There is nothing demanding in the kiss; the touch is just enough for them both to feel the swell of each others' lips, warm and soft. Still, it's unexpected, and they linger only because neither can move in the wake of it.

The pause lengthens, and Greer finds space to think; her thoughts are swirling, and she can't pin any of them down longer than a moment:  _This is a bad idea_ and _What comes next?_ and _Do it again_ and _What does this mean?_ and simply _Wow._ She is only standing because of Helena's hips, pinning her against the pillar, the wideness of them encapsulating the narrowness of her own. It is thrilling and frightening and _safe_  all at once, and her head swims with the nearness of Helena's mouth, a hairsbreadth away.

Helena thinks, _What have you done?_  even as she fights the urge to nuzzle along Greer's thin neck, to place her lips in the hollow above her collarbone. Even her dulled senses can feel the electric air between them, stretching between faces and hovering hands and shuddering breaths. _She's shorter than me,_  she observes inanely, and something about the two inch difference lures a hand to Greer's waist, fingers slipping in a comfortable curve around to the strong, taut back and the dip of her spine. _There's so much she doesn't know._  It is this last that breaks her from the spell, and Helena leans back, just a shift of the torso, heart shuddering as she studies the closed eyes of the Scotswoman before her. “Are you alright?'

The effect is weakening, for Greer; she thinks, _This cannot last,_ and jerks away, sliding out from the lure of Helena's hips. “I'm sorry. We shouldna be starting this.” Her mind turns to bitter castigation as she continues to back away. Ever since she'd first met Helena, she had begun to forget-- quite against her will-- that any friendships she forges are temporary. It is the nature of her existence, that she lives in short bursts. She has trained herself to be aloof, to keep herself separate, and what she has just done with Helena is _not_  in keeping with that. “I'm sorry,” she says again, turning away from those probing brown eyes. “I think we should be wrapping up early today.”

“You just said you didn't think we had a choice, and now you're saying that we do,” Helena says, eyes narrowing for just a moment in confusion and a little frustration. “Which is it?” She's unsure herself of what has changed in what seems like a split second; all she's really certain of is that Greer is pulling away from her not only physically, but emotionally. She had seen the blank mask descending over the fine features before Greer had turned.

“I have no idea,” Greer murmurs, feeling dizzy with a sudden fear. Thoughts of Helena are becoming entwined with thoughts of leaving, and those have caused her anxiety for almost as long as she can remember. She can't leave, will never leave, but Helena makes her want to, makes her think it's possible. Treacherous hope is laced with panic and uncertainty, and the contradictory swirl of it is swamping her. She reaches into her kit and pulls out the stole she had insisted Helena use the other day, draping it across her shoulders, and lets out a shaking breath as its calming effects reorder her thoughts.

“As much as I would like to do that again,” Greer says, voice steadier, feeling braver, “it shouldna have happened in the first place. When our work here is done, I will go back to being a statue, and you will be free. It will be an unknown amount of time before I am released again, and you will be older, and I'll be the same. It will keep happening this way until you are old, or dead, and I am in the same body I've lived in for over a century.” She gives Helena a sad smile. “As lovely as you are, I willna be able to hold any kind of relationship with a corpse.”

Hearing words that have been hinted at and implied and inferred said so baldly, Helena feels her face set into determination. “It doesn't have to be that way anymore. The world has changed, and so has the Warehouse.”

“The Warehouse doesn't change.” Only the effects of the cloth keep Greer from biting off the words.

“The people, then. Artie--”

Greer holds up a gentle hand to stop her. “Is a lovely man who has treated me incredibly well, but he doesna make the kinds of decisions that will matter to my fate.”

“Me, then.” Helena's voice has turned almost pleading. “I'll speak for you.”

“Do what ye will,” Greer says, that sad smile fading into simple resignation. “I think it willna matter much. I'm the dirty little secret of the Warehouse, the useful mistake the Regents let go on so long that they would rather keep me here than face the shame that I should never have been trapped here in the first place. Ye'd be better off forgetting about me. It's only been the two weeks we've known each other, so ye shouldna have too hard a time.” She slips off her gloves and tucks them into a pocket, closing her kit. “I really should be finished out here for the day. I canna wear the stole forever, and I should be getting somewhere that my emotions won't affect anything poorly.”

Greer turns to walk away, but Helena steps forward and cups a hand around her elbow, unwilling to let it go just yet. “How can you say all that and live with it? How can you acknowledge that you shouldn't be here, and still refuse to fight it?”

Greer wants to pull away from that beseeching hand, but the cloth around her neck lets her know it would be rude and wouldn't help. Instead, she turns, and briefly places her hand on Helena's, though she can't bring herself to meet those brown eyes. “Decades of being told no have taught me that seeking a yes at this stage would be foolish.” Gently, she peels Helena's fingers free and walks away, her soft-soled boots shushing across the floor.

Inside, behind the power of the cloth, she is crying. She had only spoken the truth to Helena, but the way her feelings have been changing doesn't allow her to be comfortable with it anymore. She had once been able to live with her existence, never quite happy, but content enough. She had once been able to face the Bronze with calm, to see it as an opportunity to think, but now it seems only to be the prison that it actually is. She had always known that she was enslaved, an indentured servant whose debt could never be paid, but she _knows_  it now with a visceral brutality that she isn't sure she can ignore any longer.

She can hear Helena following behind her until she splits off toward her room; the agent's boots click past on the way to the office and the Umbilicus. Even under the calm of the stole, it wrenches her heart for a moment before it is smoothed away. She's going to have a hell of a time once she takes it off, which is why she won't until she reaches the safety of her own four walls.

\--- --- --- --- ---

 _Coward,_  Helena wants to call herself. She had run away from the conversation with Greer, or rather, let Greer push her away from it. She's plunged through darkness with nary a light, faced powers greater than she could ever harness, but the words she had wanted to say had failed in the face of that calm resignation. _Coward._  As she starts the walk back to the inn, that one word keeps popping through her mind.

Greer had voiced the other predominant thought: They barely know each other, yet they'd developed the unfathomable chemistry that led to Helena crossing that aisle. _Good god, that kiss._ It had been but a single touch of lips, but it's caused a change in herself that she doesn't think she can reverse. The _if_  of them has become _when,_ and no argument Helena can muster holds a candle to the force of it. With that comes the knowledge that her secrets must come out; she has done terrible things, been caught trying to end civilization, for God's sake. She is in her right mind now, or at least, a better one, but she has experienced and done too many evil things; she cannot simply wash her hands and have done with them. They are indelible, marking her uneasy friendships with Pete and Artie still, and she cannot allow the same to happen with Greer.

She has done her best to keep her distance since the incident with the pipe, to stand back, to let the atmosphere between them be, but she has always had a tendency to jump too quickly, to invest herself too deeply. The loss of Christina-- Helena can see her face still, forever nine years old-- had erected a wall around her heart, one that held fairly well if she managed to keep herself aloof, but ever since that first day working with Greer, that glimpse of droll humor, of the woman beneath the collected veneer, keeping it whole is proving an ever more difficult task. She's only persisted because she has felt too much heartbreak to throw herself toward it with any great abandon.

 _But it's always been heading there, hasn't it?_  It may have started innocently enough, a flirtation with a new, intriguing acquaintance, but from the emotional shouting match in Greer's room, she has known for certain that their time is limited. Greer's life has no room for lasting relationships, but she is falling anyway, headlong and out of control. It's a disorienting feeling for Helena, who has nearly always, one way or another, managed to direct her own fate.

\--- --- --- --- ---

Artie retires for the evening, closing the door to his little suite with a relieved shove. Everyone else has already gone home, driving off just after six-- except for H.G., who Artie had seen leave perhaps an hour before that, looking perturbed.

Settling at his personal desk and pulling out a fresh sheet of paper, he isn't sure how he feels about the obvious friendship blossoming between Agent Wells and Greer. On the one hand, he is certain that it will be instrumental in winning Greer her freedom, but on the other, he has been unable to forget the lesson he had learned years before: Don't trust H.G. Wells. The woman has a devious mind, one that had been driven to the brink of insanity and hatred and beyond, and even after the destruction of the Warehouse, after knowing she would sacrifice herself for the greater good, he has never quite managed to fully trust that she's come back from it. Adwin Kosan had approved her return-- again-- after extensive psychological evaluations, the kind one can't fool, and his own strong opinion, but the unease with her remains. His shoulder still aches sometimes in reminder of the type of thing she's proved capable of.

Ever since meeting the Scottish-American woman, since learning of her existence and what had brought her to it, he has been thinking of ways to release her from it, and Wells is the best chance she's had yet. Artie has spoken up on her behalf each time he has worked with her, confident of her integrity, but each time he has been told, by unyielding Regents, “Yours cannot be the only voice that speaks for her.”

But Greer dismisses his attempts at encouraging friendships with the agents, and he can't really blame her. She has been brought out of her cage thirty-three times since her capture-- Artie has checked the personnel records-- and most of her visits are brief, lasting a month, perhaps two, before she is returned to the Bronze Sector. Some of her temporary releases had only lasted a few hours. Such an existence can only have led her to the harsh knowledge that she is a considered a tool, not a person, used when necessary and shelved when not, and he can see the bitterness in her that results from it; he swallows a sour taste in his mouth, and begins to write.

Artie has also seen the humanity that hides behind the stern, aloof front. She has a sarcastic wit that he appreciates, a perception that surpasses anyone he's ever met, and a deep compassion that peeks out occasionally, despite the mask of detachment. He'd read the early reports on her actions in the Warehouse, the sabotage she'd initially attempted to set herself free, recognized and appreciated the ingenuity of the attempt. He'd read, in disgustingly calm, indifferent typed words, the brutal consequences she had suffered for those desperate efforts, and sometimes, he'd seen her fighting the impulse to flinch when agents had lost their tempers around her.

He's worked with her four times, looked through four small windows into Greer's soul, and in these brief fragments, Artie has come to love her like a daughter. _A daughter who is more than twice your age,_ he chuckles to himself. He had watched her carefully in the spare months he'd spent with her, and each day he had seen her spirit retreat further into herself; he isn't sure if she had been able to sense it, but he could. She had stolen fewer books from the Library, asked for fewer movie reels, become less connected with her surroundings.

Until this time. Her essence has surged back, is shining through more strongly, and if she is not freed, it will crush her irrevocably. She has hope again, and Artie knows, in a visceral way that he can't explain, that if it is lost to her once more, if she is made to return to the Bronze Sector, the next time she emerges she will either be insane with rage or an empty shell. She will no longer be of use, and he will never again see her over breakfast, or struggle to understand her accent, or glimpse the faint smiles she tries to hide, but that still glimmer around her eyes.

His letter is finished, and he slips it into the file containing the latest reports, to be transported by courier to the Regents. He does not know if they will grant him a meeting-- he thinks there may be a chance, since they have had to rebuild the infrastructure almost completely in the last few years, and only two Regents remain who remember his last appeal-- but he will do whatever it takes. _It has to work this time._  It has to, or he-- and the world-- will lose Greer forever. 


End file.
